The Unexpected Hobbit
by Narsil
Summary: One evening as Bilbo is looking forward to a companionable evening at the Green Dragon, a too-young, badly wounded Big Folk girl appears out of thin air. Ten years later, when Gandalf shows up at Bag End looking for a burglar things don't turn out as he expected. Based mostly on the movies with a great deal "borrowed" from Araceil's fabulous fanfic Fate be Changed.
1. An Unexpected Hobbit

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with belongs to her.

It's ironic, considering my penname, that I haven't written any fanfics set in Tolkien's masterpiece, but until now I didn't really feel the urge. I personally liked how everything turned out, and didn't feel the need to fill in any blanks or tell any side stories. I certainly didn't feel the need for a Tenth Walker story, as excellent as some of those could be (especially with Arwen, I've always been a little disappointed that in the third movie she wasn't the one to deliver the reforged Sword That Was Broken to Aragorn, and fight by his side through the rest of the movie). Then I read _Fate be Changed_, Araceil's magnificent take on _The Hobbit_ (when will that story start up again!), and suddenly I found myself being assaulted by plot bunnies ... enough that I bought all the books for the current roleplaying game, set five years after the end of _The Hobbit_, usefully enough. Still, I didn't expect to actually write anything because the plot bunnies didn't deviate enough from Araceil's story. Only after awhile they did, at least I think so. This is the result.

The first two chapters were published as chapter 6 of my _First Chapters_, the rest is new.

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><p><em>2931, the Third Age:<em>

Bilbo Baggins whistled contentedly, his thumbs hooked into his yellow waistcoat's pockets as he strolled along the cobblestone walkway through the middle of Hobbiton. It had been a wonderful summer day: a long country walk in the morning, an afternoon with some of his favorite books, and now a happy few hours at the Green Dragon — convivial company and the _second_ finest beer in all the land of the Shire — to be finished off by a pipe of Old Toby leaf as he watched the stars come out from the seat by the front door of his own home, Bag End. Yes, it had been a magnificent day in a series of magnificent days.

He almost tripped when the scream rent the evening air, yanking him out of his reverie, then broke into a run down a side-path toward the sound along with every other male in sight, tween or adult. He couldn't imagine what might have filled the voice of whichever woman had shrieked with such terror.

He rounded the turn around one of the standing houses and stumbled to a stop, almost knocked off his feet by one of the men running behind him, at the sight of Mrs. Elanor Bracegirdle. The gasping blonde matron's hands were covering her mouth and the market goods from a dropped basket lay scattered about her feet ... and her eyes were fixed on a Man lying unconscious at her feet — a female, with pale skin and flame-red hair, dressed in pants and shirt covered with an oddly-mottled black, brown and gray pattern.

Then even as Bilbo stared, a feeling of Peace like he'd never known at his most contented seemed to cover the World, and the Man began to glow, shimmered, and seemed to shrink from view. Then the feeling slowly faded, leaving the gathering crowd staring at a clothes-covered lump.

Finally, Bilbo cautiously approached — though after ... whatever that feeling had been, he didn't think there was any danger — and knelt by the lump to undo buttons on the shirt until the oddly-shrunken Man's face was again revealed. Only now, it wasn't a Man's. She still had the flame-red hair and pale skin, but now her ears were as pointed as any Hobbit's. And those ears framed a very _young_ face, was she even in her tweens?

"What's that?" One of the children that filled the village had wriggled through the growing crush, and now the boy pointed at a growing dark stain farther down the shirt ... a dark _red_ stain.

The last of the Peace blew away with Bilbo's shock, and he scrabbled at more of the shirt's buttons, yanking it open. He ignored the clearly visible proof that she was very much a female, if much too thin — and that the breast band she'd been wearing no longer fit — his eyes widening at the sight of blood seeming to _gush_ from several odd, round holes in her abdomen and soaking her clothes beneath her. He shouted, "Someone fetch Mistress Bunce!" as he yanked at his waistcoat. He ignored the buttons flying everywhere as he pulled it off and bundled it up for a bandage.

/\

_Hours later:_

Rubbing at tired eyes, Bilbo leaned back in his chair beside the bed in one of his many guest rooms, now occupied by the now-a-Hobbit maiden, and set aside the belt the ... was-a-Man had been wearing. He had to admit that it was a very _handy_ belt, a series of pouches along each side filled with odds-and-ends — some recognizable, some not — and the special pouch for the ... was it a club? If so, with its odd shape and light weight, for all its fine craftsmanship it didn't seem as practical as the belt, so he suspected he was missing something. But it was _hers_, not his, and he set it aside. She could explain it to him when she woke up, if she chose.

He turned his attention back to his unconscious guest and reached out to hesitantly stroke the hair fanning out on her pillow, hair bleached of its vibrancy by the soft reddish light of an oil lamp, his instinctive Hobbitish wariness for the out-of-the-ordinary at war with his memory of the Peace he had felt. Mistress Bunce had tutted as she dealt with the stranger's wounds as best she could, wondering in a low mutter what could have cause such wounds as she worked on them. She wasn't sure if the stranger would ever wake up, and less sure that she'd last the night, but Bilbo disagreed. He didn't know which of the Powers had brought the stranger to Hobbiton, but he was certain it was a benevolent one — and that she'd been brought for a reason. He couldn't see how that reason, whatever it might be, could be satisfied by her dying.

A soft knock sounded through the burrow, and he hastily rose and snatched up the oil lamp to hurry to his front entrance. He pulled open the round door to reveal Marmadoc Smallburrow, the mayor of Hobbiton. "Come in, come in," he softly said. He ushered the mayor into his dining room and poured tea and laid out some biscuits for the exhausted Hobbit.

Marmadoc finished the midnight snack with a sigh of relief and leaned back in his chair. "How is she?"

"About the same," Bilbo replied. He hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Did you find any more bodies?"

Marmadoc grimaced. "Yes, another two. That makes seven, six males and a female. All dead." He hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly added, "Bilbo, I'm not sure what to do! This isn't like the usual squabble between families a mayor deals with. For once, I'm wishing Gandalf was here for more than his fireworks."

Bilbo smiled for a moment as he remembered a nighttime party of his early childhood, Gandalf in his gray robes and tall, pointed hat using the tip of his staff to light the fuses of his famous fireworks and fill the night sky with brilliant multi-colored bursts, streaks and shapes. Then he sobered as the evening's events returned. "Yes, he'd know what to do — this kind of thing is what wizards are supposed to deal with, after all. I just never thought it could happen here." After some thought, he said, "They were all dressed in the same odd clothing as she was, right?" When the mayor nodded, he continued, "That probably means they're friends of hers, and the one thing Mistress Bunce was sure of was that my guest won't be getting out of bed any time soon — not alive, anyway. So the best I can think of is to have Folco do a sketch of each body's face and then bury them. She can use the sketches to give us names for headstones when she wakes up."

"But what about _her_?" Marmadoc asked. He leaned forward, hands clasped and elbows resting on the table. "If she lives, what do we _do_ with her? Considering their clothing and the way they arrived I doubt we're anywhere close to her home, and however much she looks like a Hobbit maid now she's one of the Big Folk."

Bilbo hesitated, considering the mayor's words. He did have a point ... she _wasn't_ a Hobbit, whatever her present appearance. But ... he remembered, again, his first sight of the maid's bloodless too-thin face framed by fiery hair and Hobbit-pointed ears. _Perhaps she's _meant_ to be here. Why else would she have changed to one of us?_ He nodded firmly, decision made."I have plenty of rooms, she can stay with me."

Marmadoc stared doubtfully at Bilbo. "Are you sure? You have a good reputation here in Hobbiton, and you'll be responsible for her actions."

"I'm sure," Bilbo replied, face softening in wonder as he thought of the Peace he had felt. "I don't understand much about what happened today, but the one thing I'm sure of is that she is no threat. At least, not to us."

"I suppose we'll just have to hope you're right," Marmadoc said with a shrug, before wearily dragging himself to his feet. "And now it's time I find my own bed, morning will get here all too soon. Your suggestion about the sketches is a good one, I'll have to look up Folco to get that done first thing so we can bury them before they start to stink."

Bilbo saw the mayor out, then returned to the guest room to sit beside the maiden, musing over the conversation. The mayor was right, if she stayed at Bag End his reputation would be bound up in hers. Still, considering the Peace he had felt he simply could not believe she was a threat.

He leaned forward to lay a hand on her forehead, checking for the heat that signaled fever. _I wonder what color her eyes are._

/oOo\

_2932, T.A.:_

From her hiding place behind one of the trees surrounding the small clearing, a crouching Sakura Piper observed the camp in the clearing's center, and especially the four figures wearing brown and green sitting around the small fire eating their evening meal. It was possible they were brigands, of course, but she doubted it; their clothes were too well cared for as were the bows she could see (odd bows — stubby and thick, not the longbows she'd have expected thanks to a Robin Hood movie she saw as a child). The camp was too neat, a camp of people that expected to clean up after themselves and wanted to do so with a minimum of fuss. She didn't have any actual experience with brigands, but she'd always thought they'd be more slovenly, like the street gangs that had infested parts of her lost home's cities — or at least, so she had heard of. Besides, here on the south border of the Shire there weren't any traders to speak of, beyond that occasional wandering tinker.

Maybe — just maybe — she'd found the people she was looking for. And if she hadn't, she could always run away and disappear in the wilderness.

/\

"Hello, that camp. Can I come in?"

At the high-pitched, oddly-accented voice behind him, Eradon whirled, whipping his knife from its sheath. Normally he wouldn't have been that startled, but the voice was right behind him and in spite of his decades of experience he'd had no warning _at all!_

Behind him stood a fiery-haired Hobbit maiden and he instantly relaxed, his abrupt fear and shame vanishing. She was no threat, and even with his decades of experience as a Ranger there was no shame in being snuck up on by a Hobbit. Though she was remarkably steady for one of that shy folk, she hadn't even flinched at the sight of his blade. And more to the point, what was she _doing_ here?

"Certainly, come on in," he replied. He slipped his knife back in its sheath then waved a hand at a piece of log by the small fire next to where he had been sitting. "Would you like some stew? I know our meal isn't up to the standards of a Hobbit's dinner, but it's tasty."

"Sure, thanks." The maiden cheerfully smiled at him, then circled the group to an open space on the opposite side of the fire and squatted down next to the patrol's only female member. She accepted a bowl and spoon and dug in, ignoring his continued scrutiny as he resumed his seat.

She was definitely an odd one, and it wasn't just her presence and lack of fear or the way she was crouched, ready to spring away at a moment's notice. She certainly wasn't dressed like any Hobbit maiden he'd ever seen, wearing old, worn, shirt and pants and a shabby waistcoat that, being meant for a male Hobbit, accentuated her assets rather than hid them. Then there was how _thin_ she was, both in body and face, and there was the odd almond-shape appearance of her eyes —

"You're Sakura, aren't you?" he blurted out without thinking, then blushed when she looked up with a grin.

"Figured it out, did you?" she responded. "How did you know? Quiet contacts with Shire folk?"

"Hi, I'm Ivorwen, and these are Eradon, Arahad and Ohtar," Ivorwen said from beside Sakura, flashing Eradon a grin as his blush deepened at the realization he'd completely failed at common courtesy. She continued, "And we have the occasional contact with the Took at secondhand, for news of Shire happenings that might be of interest and to pass along anything odd we come across, any suggestions for how to schedule his Bounders. Your appearance out of empty air certainly fits the first category. So what are you doing here? We don't get many visitors."

Sakura shrugged as she continued to eat. "I was curious. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain — no, that's not fair, Hobbits aren't stupid, just self-satisfied ... anyone that knows anything about history. Anyway, it should be clear that _someone_ is protecting the Shire, and I wondered who it might be. Besides, I was going stir-crazy, needed to get out for a little while. This is good stew! A lot better than the MREs I was used to in the field."

"Yes, Arahad's the best field cook around," Eradon boasted, reaching to refill Sakura's empty bowl. "What's an MRE?"

"Meals, Ready to Eat," Sakura answered with a laugh like tinkling chimes. "They're light, portable, don't need a fire and will keep you alive, but sometimes you wish they didn't."

"Ah, like cram," Ohtar said, then at Sakura's questioning look added, "Dwarvish waybread, it's as bad as these 'MREs' of yours sound like. The lembas the Elves make is _much_ better."

"Sounds like we could have used that."

Eradon opened his mouth to ask who 'we' were, then remembered the Took's report of the _other_ seven Big Folk that had appeared out of nowhere, all wearing the same oddly-patterned clothing (though the rangers had been instantly jealous when they saw one shirt, recognizing the camouflage pattern for what it was even if they'd never seen its like before) ... all dead. His mouth snapped shut.

Sakura finished off her second bowl of stew, rose to her feet and stretched as she glanced around at the shadows stretching east across the clearing, only the tops of the trees on the east side still bathed in sunlight. "Thanks again for the stew, but now that my curiosity is satisfied I have to get back." She grimaced. "I have a lunch with the ladies of Hobbiton tomorrow, and I don't want to be late."

Eradon winced. "Boring, you said?"

"Yeah, small-town gossip about people I haven't known all my life," Sakura agreed with a sigh. "But they're such goodhearted people, if they're willing to put up with me, what can I do but try to put up with them?" With a wave, she turned toward the edge of the clearing.

"Sounds like you could use the occasional break," Ivorwen said sympathetically. "Why don't you visit occasionally?"

Sakura froze between the first trees, then turned back around. "Do you really mean it?" she asked, eyes hopeful.

"Sure," Ivorwen responded. She glared down Arahad when he was about to speak, then continued, "We'll be happy to have you."

Sakura warily eyed Arahad, looked around to see if anyone else objected, then put on a thoughtful pose. "Let's see, between housecleaning, trying to learn how to cook on a woodburning stove;" — the rangers exchanged confused glances, all with the same thought: _What other kind of stove _is_ there?_ — "weeding the vegetable and flower gardens when Master Gamgee or Hamfast is there to keep an eye on just what I'm pulling; pushing my way through dusty, old books written in a language I'm still learning and an alphabet I'm not comfortable with yet; the weekly luncheons with the ladies, practicing katas to stay in shape ... I ought to be able to squeeze you into my schedule somewhere, thank you. Around this time next week?" At their affirmatives — even Arahad — her smile seemed to light up the clearing for a moment, and then she was gone.

/\

As soon as she was out of sight of the camp Sakura dodged behind a tree, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and focused, spreading her influence through the woods around her. _I am the wind through the trees, the flicker of shadows._ Satisfied that she wouldn't be noticed, she crept back to the edge of the camp.

"— did you invite her back?" Arahad was asking.

Ivorwen shrugged. "She's a mystery — apparently a benign mystery, but one nonetheless. We'll be able to learn more about her if she's actually around — what she says, what she can do, how she acts. Besides, she seems like a sweet girl, and I think she's lonely. From the clothes she and the others were wearing when they arrived, I suspect we'll understand her better than the Hobbits she's living among ever can ... farmers and crafters the lot of them, whatever their ability to rise to the occasion when needs must, and while those lives can sometimes be _dangerous_, they aren't _violent_. I think her life before coming here was anything but peaceful, and she could use some friends that get it."

Sakura silently snuck away until she was well away from the clearing, then rose to her feet, let her cloak of Invisibility relax, and headed north toward Hobbiton and the next day's luncheon. In spite of the nighttime walk ahead of her, she found herself softly singing a cheery tune as she strode along.

/oOo\

_2936, T.A.:_

"— don't know what we are going to do about Marigold," Mentha Hornblower said sorrowfully. "This is the third engagement broken off, and there won't be another. This time it was Hugo that broke it, not her — and the rumor is it's because he caught her naked with Isembard. We don't need another Myrtle, having a girl that bounces from man to man or even rents herself out is bad for the community. And that's not to think of her children — and there will almost certainly _be_ children, a girl that's no better than she has to be is usually careless with the herbs."

Camellia Twofoot glanced sideways at Sakura where she sat sipping her tea, dressed in her brilliantly blue best dress, with green ribbons her hair. As nonchalantly as the matron could manage, she asked, "How would your people have dealt with this, Sakura dear? Would this be normal enough to ... have a typical way to fix it?"

Sakura sighed softly, only barely stopping from rolling her eyes. While she was ostensibly accepted by all of the seven matrons present, that tolerance enforced by Mistress Daisy Greenhand, Camellia had been pushing the limits from the time she had joined Hobbiton's matrons in their regular meetings (ostensibly for training in how Hobbit society worked, but she'd had her doubts from the start). "No," she patiently said, "I've already told you we were less ... united, socially, each family managing its own affairs. So even though proper people would have much the same view of Marigold's behavior as Hobbits, there would have been nothing we could do about it."

" 'The same views', really? Even for the warriors?" Camellia asked primly, her faint smirk vanishing behind her tea cup.

Suddenly, Sakura had had enough. She carefully set down her tea cup and saucer. "Let's pretend you asked what you _really_ want to know — what _I_ was like — and I'll tell you," she said coldly, her normally laughing eyes hard. "I made Marigold look like a perfect maiden. From the age of fifteen until my arrival here, I can't tell you how many men I went to bed with." Then her eyes dropped, voice softening as she added, "Things look very different ... when you're fifteen and convinced that you won't live to see your eighteenth birthday."

She kept her eyes fixed on the table in the sudden ringing silence that filled the room, until she felt a soft touch on one hand from the chubby blonde matron sitting next to her, and looked up into Rose Sackville's sympathetic eyes.

Mistress Greenhand cleared her throat. "We are getting away from the issue," she said firmly. "I've checked my mother's diaries for the last time this happened before Myrtle. We need talk to Isembard's parents. Since he has ruined any chance that another family will consider Marigold for their sons, he should take on the engagement..."

/\

Sakura stay seated as the luncheon broke up, gazing into her teacup, waiting as quietly as she had been through the remainder of the discussion.

Finally, Mistress Greenhand returned from seeing off the rest of the group and dropped into the seat across from her, picking up one of the few cookies left behind to nibble on. "So what's significant about turning eighteen?"

"What?" Sakura looked up. "Oh, among my people that's the age a child becomes an adult."

"Really." Mistress Greenhand's eyebrows rose. "That young? No period as a tween?"

"No," Sakura said with a smile, shaking her head. "By the time we turn thirty-three most are married with a one or two children, at least."

"Oh my, tweens raising children. And you weren't even a tween, with an adult's life forced on you. I can't imagine how desperate your people must have been, to do what they did to you." She shifted her gaze to stare at the wall behind Sakura for a long moment, eyes haunted as she undoubtedly tried to think of anything that could push the Shire to such need, then pushed aside the half-formed nightmare she was contemplating. Refocusing on Sakura, she dryly asked, "I hope you are regularly taking the herbs I gave you, at least?"

Sakura grinned. "Yes, but only for holding off my time of month. Bilbo wouldn't dream of 'forcing' his attentions on a guest, and the few that have ... _inquired_ have simply been too immature to interest me. Besides, I have my reputation to think of. And Bilbo's, since I'm his guest." _Something I should have thought of before I mouthed off_, she thought with a wince. "Maybe ... maybe I should skip the next luncheon?"

Mistress Greenhand suppressed a smile as she remembered the gold ring she'd seen Bilbo playing with once, and glared sternly at her guest. "No! No, you _will_ be here next week, as normal, Sakura Piper!"

"But after what I said —"

Mistress Greenhand sighed. "Yes, Camellia and Asphodel will take it poorly, but Rose, Pervinca and Elanor understand and Mentha is willing to follow my lead. And more important, as odd as you are they like you. They will be able to counter the stories Camellia, at least, is sure to spread. But only if you are still meeting with us."

"Oh ... so I've been meeting with you for five years now to ..." Her voice trailed off, and Mistress Greenhand finished for her.

"To try to convince everyone that you're one of us ... well, somewhat. Not an Outsider, at least." The old matron sighed. "It has been ... a bit of a success. At least the mothers trust you with their children, long enough to tell a few stories."

"Long enough to get their shopping at the market done, at least. I'd imagine that explains a big part of it." Sakura smiled at the thought of the horde of eager children that would corner her when she visited the market, begging for another story, then rose to her feet. "I'd better be on my way. We ran a little long today, by now Bilbo will be wondering where I am."

"Yes, he will." Mistress Greenhand rose stiffly to her feet to show Sakura out, and gazed speculatively after her, following the fiery blaze of afternoon sun on the girl's hair up the Hill to the luxurious burrow that was Bag End. _I wonder how long until you are the mistress of Bag End in name as well as in truth?_ True, Bilbo was almost twice her age and it would be over a decade before they could marry, but none of the other eligible maids in Hobbiton — or any of the other villages around — had caught his eye. Yes, they would be a good match ... if she stayed long enough.

The oldest matron in Hobbiton laughed softly to herself as she closed her door and called out for her great-granddaughter and her friends to come down and help clean up. Walking back to supervise the thundering herd, she muttered, "You are getting to be as nosy an old biddy as Asphodel, they'll do as they wish and it's no business of yours. Still, trust the son of Belladonna Took to fall for a girl just like his mother, however respectable he may seem." There was some hope in that, now that she thought about it. Belladonna _had_ settled down, after all. Eventually.


	2. An Unexpected Party

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with in _Fate be Changed_ belongs to her.

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><p><em>2941, T.A.:<em>

"I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure."

Bilbo stared in shock at the tall, long-bearded, ancient Man leaning on his staff, that had interrupted his blissful morning blowing smoke rings (_outside_ of Bag End — even if it hadn't been a beautiful day, Sakura had made it clear without saying a word that she didn't approve of smoking inside the burrow). Even the Man's mode of dress was odd, a gray robe rather than pants and shirt, and he was made even taller than he already was by a gray, pointed hat covering his long white hair. But it wasn't the strangely familiar Man's appearance that rendered Bilbo momentarily speechless, but what he'd just said. _He's here for Sakura!_ Thankfully, she was off on one of her visits to her ranger friends.

"In an adventure?" the earth-haired Hobbit finally managed to say. "No, I don't imagine that anyone west of Bree would have much interest in adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner. Good morning." Bilbo rose from his bench just inside the wood fence fronting the stone-paved path that ran past his round, green front door. He walked along to his mailbox and pulled out the morning's delivery and looked through the envelopes, studiously ignoring his unwanted visitor in the hope that the Man would take the hint and go away.

But the Man didn't take the hint, instead ruefully shaking his head. In a deep, gravelly voice, he said, "To think I should have lived to be good morninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door."

Wait ... his mother? This Man had known his mother?! Almost against his will, Bilbo looked up again at that craggy, weather-beaten face. "I beg your pardon."

"You've changed, and not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins."

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"You know my name, though you don't remember I belong to it. I'm Gandalf, and Gandalf means me."

"Not Gandalf the wandering wizard that made such excellent fireworks? Old Took used to have them on Midsummer's Eve! I had no idea you were still in business." _Now_, Bilbo abruptly knew where he had seen this Man before, a Man he hadn't thought of since the days just after Sakura had appeared out of nowhere. Then he had wished for Gandalf's presence, to solve the mystery that was his unwanted guest and to take her off his hands. Now ... one hand went to the pocket where he kept his mother's engagement ring.

"And where else should I be?" Gandalf huffed. "I'm pleased to find you remember something about me, even if it's only my fireworks." He thoughtfully gazed at the increasingly nervous Hobbit, then nodded decisively. "Well, that's decided. It will be very good for you, and most amusing for me. I shall inform the others."

"What?" Bilbo gaped. Gandalf was talking about _him_? _Not_ Sakura? "No, no, wait," he babbled, "we do not want any adventures here, not today." He winced. _We?_ "I suggest you try over the Hill or across the Water. Good morning." He bolted for his door, slamming and locking it behind him. Back flat against the wall, he shuffled along to the nearest window and leaned around to glance outside, then slumped in relief to see the gray-clad back of Gandalf vanishing around the bend in the path that circled around the Hill.

/oOo\

Eradon watched in awe from the underbrush as Sakura crept on bare, crimson-furred feet toward the browsing herd of deer. Oh, he wasn't surprised by her silence — she _was_ a Hobbit, after all — but she was also well away from the edge of the clearing, and however little a profile she might present with the way she was crouched she was also in plain sight. Yet even though several of the deer had looked straight at her, none of them had so much as twitched in alarm.

Then came the part he hated with a passion: she had decided she was close enough and sprang forward toward her target, one of the young bucks. A quick rush, one prodigious leap (for a Hobbit), and she landed on the buck's back. Even as it started to whirl in place as the rest of the deer in the clearing bolted, she threw herself forward between its still-small rack of horns and her knife flashed across the buck's throat. Then she was throwing herself back and off, tucking to roll across the meadow grass even as the buck collapsed, kicking and spraying blood from severed arteries.

Eradon ran forward, heart in his mouth, then relaxed with a sigh of relief as Sakura rose to her feet — she'd pulled it off yet again. The two stood side by side in companionable silence as they waited for the buck to stop moving. When it was well and truly dead, he gave her a moment to walk forward alone and place a gentle hand on its head in regret and thanks, then the pair quickly went to work skinning the carcass and carving out and wrapping up cuts of meat in the skin for transport back to camp. He eyed her knife as they worked, a blade made to her own specifications by a blacksmith in Bree and more a shortsword (again for a Hobbit), and a vicious-looking thing with its reinforced back and single edge except for the double-edged curved tip. That blade was made for more than skinning carcasses, and now all the rangers had one like it.

"You know, it still amazes me to watch you practically _walk_ up to the deer like that," he said conversationally as they finished up. Sakura glanced up from where she was wiping her knife clean of blood before returning it to its sheath. "You say that every time," she said with a grin for their now-traditional routine. "It's still a family Art that I'll be teaching to any future husband if he wishes and my children if and when I have any, and no one else."

He sighed with theatrical regret, delighting in her tinkling laughter at his traditional response. Then as nonchalantly as he could manage he asked, "Have you considered starting to use your bow for hunting? Your skill for archery has really improved."

Sakura's gaze sharpened, then softened as she noticed his forced ease. "Watching me stalking dinner bothers you that much?" she asked softly, then shook her head without waiting for a reply. "No. At least, not yet. I need to keep in practice with my Art. Besides, I'm not _that_ good a shot yet, and I'd rather not waste a goodly part of an afternoon tracking down a wounded buck because I missed my shot. Not when I could spend it on other things like ... oh, I don't know ... practicing my archery?" She grinned at Eradon's rueful laughter, then slung her share of the skin-wrapped meat up over a shoulder. "Now let's head back to camp, so I can get started on that practice and you all can tell me the latest news — in Quenya this time, for practice. You never know when I might need to talk to some Elf," she finished with a grin.

/oOo\

Bilbo all but slunk out of the front door of Bag End, head twisting as he looked all around for the huge, gray-clad visitor of the morning. He almost hadn't left the house, he'd been so shaken by the earlier encounter, but in the end had decided he was being foolish — if Gandalf chose to return, Bilbo couldn't think of how he could keep the wizard out.

Besides, the Hobbit had a hankering for fish, and with Sakura (thankfully) away visiting her ranger friends he could indulge in the day's catch from the closest river without making her nauseous and have the burrow aired out by the time she got back the next morning.

So he made his nervous way down the Hill to the market, without catching so much as a glimpse of Gandalf — a good thing, too, since as soon as he reached the market he was mobbed by children, demanding to know where Sakura was and disappointed to learn that she wouldn't be joining them. It was the work of a few minutes to shoo them back to their mothers, and he soon had his fish wrapped up and was headed back home. So far, so good. Now he could only hope that Gandalf had taken his rejection seriously and moved on to look elsewhere.

That night, when he answered the knock on his door just as he was sitting down to enjoy his fish, and found a massive, tattooed, armored and heavily armed Dwarf on his doorstep, his heart sank as he realized that he had hoped in vain.

/oOo\

Sakura yawned as she walked through the dark up to Bag End, the stone-paved path hard under her weary feet. She had mentally kicked herself for her decision to return that evening several times during the long walk, but once started she had been determined to finish it and now finish it she finally had.

She unlatched the door and stepped through, careful not to trip over the circular opening, and gratefully swung the backpack full of fresh meat along with bow and arrow-filled quiver off of shoulders still sore from her archery practice. _At least I'm improving_, she thought, .then gagged slightly at the smell wafting through the burrow, a mix of fish and pipe smoke. Yes, she _definitely_ should have spent the night with the rangers and given Bilbo a chance to air out the burrow before she returned. Ah, well, too late now, she'd just have to remember in the future.

"Bilbo, I'm back, with enough —"

She broke off as her tired mind _finally_ registered the presence of one old Man and thirteen Dwarves, all staring at her along with an unhappy Hobbit. She stared back at everyone staring at her then, pitching her voice lower, said, "So, Bilbo, will you introduce me to your ... friends?"

/\

" ... and Thorin Oakenshield."

Sakura's eyes widened at that last name in the series of introductions. The identification of the Man as Gandalf hadn't been too much of a surprise, she'd had her ranger friends' description to go by (he played a rather prominent role in some of the stories they'd told her), but Oakenshield's came as a shock.

She bowed in her seat, cudgeling her mind for the proper polite response, then when the once-mentioned in passing phrase failed to come mentally shrugged. "So, what brings thirteen Dwarves and the Gray Wanderer to Bag End?" she asked instead.

Thorin glowered. "Our business is with Mr. Baggins. We have need of a burglar." He motioned toward a white-haired and -bearded Dwarf — Balin — and the other Dwarf reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a folded-up sheet of paper.

For a long moment Sakura simply sat and stared, trying to make the words 'Baggins' and 'burglar' fit in the same sentence and failing miserably. For that matter, 'burglar' and 'Oakenshield' didn't go together any better. "Just what does the king of Erebor in Exile want with a _burglar_?" she demanded, reaching out to accept the offered paper.

Thorin's ire eased as an eyebrow raised. He leaned back in his chair and gazed at her contemplatively. Finally, he said, "The time has come for the Dwarves to reclaim our home."

For the first time in years a wave of homesickness washed over her, as she remembered a century-old ranch house, wide open star-filled sky with the promise of rain in the clouds rolling in, a trip up into the mountains for sledding and while the men folk picked out a Christmas tree, her parents and older brothers and sisters, laughter and love around the dinner table...

With an effort that almost left her shaking, she thrust her childhood memories from before the War aside to focus on the present, and the Dwarves that inhabited it ... and frowned as she finally _looked_ at them — as individuals and not just Dwarves. Yes, there were a few warriors among them, the one with tattoos across the top of his head — Dwalin? — was one, certainly, and the story behind Oakenshield's nickname proved his own qualities. And the young ones (at least, she _thought_ they were young) were trained. But the rest ...

"You obviously aren't planning on a frontal assault," she finally said with a wry smile, "so just what do you need recovered" — the rangers' stories had Oakenshield's greatest fault a prickly, stiff, unyielding sense of honor that epitomized the Country song lyrics 'If I didn't earn it I don't want it', so there was no way he actually wanted to _steal_ anything — "and what does it have to do with taking on a Dragon?"

/\

Thorin had to admit that he was reluctantly impressed with the addition to the evening's discussions. He had been very _under_whelmed by their host when he had first arrived. If it hadn't been for Gandalf, he would have stormed out as soon as he got a good look at Mr. Baggins ... well, that and they desperately _needed_ a burglar, but the more he saw of him the more he wondered just what Gandalf was thinking. Mr. Piper, though, was a seam of _very_ different quality ore.

Oh, he was as stunningly beautiful as Mr. Baggins (was that how Men saw those anorexic pointy-eared noses-in-the-air self-important Elves?), though more modestly dressed in his leathers. Too thin for _real_ beauty, but his ruby hair and sparkling lapis lazuli eyes added to his childlike size to make any Dwarf that saw him instantly protective.

Not that he was likely to take any offer of protection well. By the knife on his belt, the bow and quiver slung on the backpack he had set aside, the way he moved, and the way he had obviously just sized up the company, Thorin suspected that this was the first Hobbit he'd seen that could take care of himself.

And he knew what questions to ask, and Thorin doubted he'd be able to get away with the partial answers and misdirections that dealing with Men had taught him. And Mr. Piper was patiently waiting for those answers.

Finally, Thorin reluctantly growled, "We seek the Arkenstone. With it, I can command the service of the army I will need to defeat the Dragon."

"And this 'Arkenstone' is somewhere in Smaug's horde?" At Thorin's curt nod the Hobbit smiled cheerfully. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" He ignored the stirring among the Dwarves as some took offense at his cheek, and looked toward to Gandalf.

/\

Gandalf was actually finding it somewhat difficult to focus on the discussion, so fascinating did he find that discussion's interlocutor. He had never imagined that a Hobbit like Mr. Sakura (and where had _that_ name come from?) Piper could possibly exist, not here in the Shire — outside of perhaps the Took. Worse, it had been too long since he had visited the Shire, or even west of the Misty Mountains. In his absence Belladonna Baggins — his best source of information for happenings in the Shire — had died too young, and that long absence meant he hadn't had the opportunity to cultivate a new one.

Not that he had truly _needed_ a source before now, beyond a chance to rest his soul among a simpler, happier people that looked on him with a mildly tolerant suspicion rather that awe — to delight in their small affairs and forget about the fate of all of the peoples of Middle Earth for a time.

But as a result he had been blindsided time and again: by the too-early death of his friend; by the changes in her son from an adventurous youngling always running off on the mini-adventures possible for the very young to the staid, satisfied, _settled_ mature Hobbit's Hobbit; and then by the existence of Bilbo's _very_ unusual friend, and the obvious trust Bilbo put in him. It had become rapidly obvious that if Sakura wasn't satisfied with the answer to the equally obvious question, then Bilbo wouldn't be going.

Then he got blindsided yet again.

Sakura leaned back in his chair and gazed speculatively at the wizard for a few moments before asking, "Why you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why are you involved in this?" He waved at the numerous Dwarves. "Their motivation is obvious, but you?"

"And why wouldn't I be involved?" he asked. "Is it not a worthy quest?"

"Certainly," Sakura agreed. "But while I've heard all about the wonderful fireworks of Gandalf the Wizard from the Hobbits, the rangers' tales of Mithrandir — the Gray Wanderer — are rather different. You are a busy man, and however powerful you may be a day for you is as long — or as short — as it is for us. You wouldn't be a part of a quest this long without a reason. So what is it?"

Intrigued, Gandalf cocked an eyebrow. He'd caught the reference to 'the' Hobbits, as if Sakura wasn't one, however covered his feet had been with fiery fur-like hair when he'd walked through the door. And then there was the mention of the rangers — there were Hobbits that knew of their guardians just beyond their borders, but they were few. Yes, this Hobbit was definitely a mystery, but he was also right ... there was only so much time in a day, and he was likely one mystery that the wizard wouldn't have time to explore for months, perhaps years.

A regretful Gandalf sighed softly, before answering. "I, too, am concerned about the Dragon," he admitted. "There is an Evil rising in the world, and it is likely to strike from South and East. If Smaug is allied to that Evil, the results will be catastrophic."

Sakura's gaze sharpened, then he nodded. "And with Smaug gone and a King once again Under the Mountain — and almost certainly a refounded Dale — not only is a weakness in your defense eliminated but you're stronger than ever."

Then before the Wizard could respond he asked the question Gandalf _had_ been expecting and trying to come up with an answer for. "So why Bilbo?" Gandalf thought he could see humor lurking in the Hobbit's eyes, reflecting in the lamp-light. "I know all about the two abiding flaws of wizards, but I also know all about Need To Know," — (Gandalf could hear the capitalization) — "and I need to know."

"And just what are a Wizard's 'two abiding flaws'?"

Yes, the impish grin that spread across Sakura's face definitely was not feigned as he replied, "An unfortunate tendency to deal in half-truths and misdirections, and an equally unfortunate tendency to meddle." Thorin snorted, remembering his encounter with Gandalf in Bree that had been the catalyst for their adventure, as several of the other Dwarves grinned, and Sakura's smile broadened. "Well?" he asked again, laughter in his voice.

Gandalf chuckled ruefully for a moment — it had been a _long_ time since someone had so thoroughly set him on his back foot, with a smile all the while — then shrugged. "I am afraid I don't know," he admitted.

"What?!" The exclamation burst from several throats, including Bilbo's, but Thorin quieted them with a sharp glance before turning back to glare at Gandalf. "Explain," he growled.

"Sometimes, when considering a problem, I receive ... premonitions, hints of what I will need," Gandalf replied. "I expected the Elders to reject your call to assemble the armies to deal with the Dragon — you have not yet recovered from your losses outside the gates of the mines of Moria, and they will not wish to incur even more." He paused when Thorin flinched — that battle had given the king in exile his title of 'Oakenshield' when he had lost his shield and picked up a wide oak branch to replace it, but it had also cost him his grandfather and younger brother. But when Thorin didn't say anything the Wizard continued. "I knew that we would need the Arkenstone to give you the authority to overcome the Elders' refusal, and so would need a burglar. While I was ruminating on who might fill that need, the thought of Bag End came to me with the crystal clarity of a true premonition."

Before Thorin could respond, Sakura spoke up, his good cheer vanished. "Gandalf, your premonitions — do they give you _new_ knowledge, or simply focus on what you already know that's important?"

Gandalf looked over at the Hobbit, his interest again piqued at the question. "The latter," he replied. "You are familiar with such foretellings?"

"No, not personally," Sakura said, "but I had a friend that did." He paused, eyes darkening with memory, then started when Bilbo laid a hand on his arm. He forced a smile for his friend, then refocused on Gandalf. "Jason hated them, said it was like finding anonymous letters in his mailbox, with no return address and full of cryptic nonsense — that he might only understand in retrospect, or never make sense of at all. But they did prove useful from time to time.

"But you said that your premonition involved Bag End, _not_ Bilbo?"

"Yessss, I did," Gandalf said slowly, realizing where Sakura was going. From the way Thorin straightened, so did he. And so did Bilbo, from the way the son of his old friend seemed to shrink down in his seat.

"And you didn't know about me," Sakura said. At the choking sound coming from Bilbo, he gripped his friend's hand for a moment before unfolding the contract. "It seems you have your burglar."


	3. For a Dancer

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with in _Fate be Changed_ belongs to her.

* * *

><p>Bilbo managed to stay silent as he and Sakura settled the Dwarves on bed and couch and floor throughout the burrow. But finally the thirteen Dwarves and one Wizard hdd been settled for the night and the venison she'd brought moved to the cool room, and when Sakura turned toward her own room he caught her arm. "We need to talk, my room," he murmured.<p>

Sakura silently nodded and followed Bilbo one door down from her bedroom to his own.

Once the two were inside and the door closed, Sakura waited patiently as Bilbo lit several candles in wall sconces with the oil lamp he carried. Candles lit, he set his oil lamp down on a side table next to hers and stared out at his own reflection cast up on his window by the candles for long minutes, fingers playing again with something in his waistcoat pocket, before turning to face her. "I don't want you to go. Steal from a _Dragon_! The stories say they know every coin in their hoard, they're ever watchful, you can't _do_ this, you'll be _killed!_"

"No, I won't." Sakura stepped forward and reached up to lay her hands on Bilbo's shoulders. "Bilbo, you've only seen me here in the Shire ... at _peace_. You've never seen me hunting, you have no idea how sneaky I can be when I have to be. Besides, we'll have Gandalf with us, he wouldn't waste his time and our lives on a hopeless mission, we can _do_ this. And we _have_ to. If Gandalf is right about an Evil rising — and I'm not going to gainsay _that_ Wizard — if it isn't stopped east of the Misty Mountains, there's certainly nothing _west_ of them that'll hold it back. Away from the Shire.

"I have to do this."

Bilbo's shoulders sagged, but he nodded. "I knew you were going to say something like that," he grumbled, gaze dropping to the floor. "You _will_ come back?"

"Oh, Bilbo, of course I will! What would I be without my best friend?" She shifted one hand from shoulder to chin to lift his head so she could look him in the eyes. "What would you do without me?" she asked with as reassuring a smile as she could manage. "I hate to think what Bag End is going to be like when I get back, I don't know how you ever did without me."

Bilbo managed a brief chuckle before asking, "You promise?"

"I promise." Sakura pulled him into a hug. "And you know I _always_ keep my promises."

Bilbo clutched at the smaller Hobbit, faced buried in her hair, and the two simply stood there in each other's embrace for long minutes before Bilbo reluctantly let her go and stepped back, expression serious. "But before you go, there's something I want to ask you." He dipped his fingers into the pocket he habitually played with, extended his hand to her. There was a plain gold ring in his palm. "When you get back, will you marry me?"

Sakura stared at him, shocked to her core. "Bilbo ... you don't have to ... I promised I'll come back ..."

He shook his head. "It's not that. Like you said, you keep your promises. I've wanted to ask you for years but you're ... not my guest, you're much more than that, but you had nowhere else to go. I didn't want you to feel you _owe_ me ... anyway, I finally decided to wait until your thirty-third birthday when you'd be done with your tweens. But now ..."

His voice trailed off as she stared at him, her thoughts racing scattershot. She could barely remember a time, before the War, when she had dreamed of becoming a wife, a _partner_ on a small home ranch of her own, with a handful of children (in more ways than one) that she could scold and pamper and teach the Family Art and watch grow up to lives and families of their own. That dream had died — murdered by the horrors of the War, with the certainty of her death and her hands dripping with blood — and the decade of peace since finding herself in a new world hadn't brought it back to life. Her status as a semi-Outsider had seen to that, what Hobbit would want a maid as bizarre as her for a wife? And she refused to pretend to be someone else just to catch a husband — if she did, the act would go on for the _rest of her life!_

But now ... _Bilbo is ... not who I would have picked, but he _knows_ me. And he's a good friend — a good _man_. We're already practically husband and wife ... well, except for the _good_ part ... and he'd be a good father —_

His hand curled into a fist around the ring and began to fall, and she hastily reached out to catch it. She gently pried open his unresisting fingers and picked up the ring. "If you're willing to put up with the inevitable whispers, I'll be happy to marry you," she whispered, then threw her arms around her new fiancé and spun him around, laughing as tears ran down her cheeks. She was going to have a _family_ again! She had a _future!_

Finally slowing down their impromptu spinning dance to a stop, she staggered dizzily for a moment before recovering her balance and sliding the ring onto her middle finger, eyes widening rising when it fit perfectly. "How did you know my ring size?"

Bilbo grinned. "Remember the time you tried on my mother's jewelry?" he asked. "I noticed which rings fit, and when I finally worked up the courage to decide to ask you and needed to resize my mother's engagement ring, well ..." He shrugged.

"Smart man." Sakura grinned at her fiancé, then paused as a thought struck her — he _was_ her fiancé. She briefly considered the long day that was to come, the already late hour, and mentally shrugged. She could catch up on her sleep on the road — one advantage to ponies was that if the pony knew where it was going, one could let _it_ do the 'driving'.

She stepped close to Bilbo and with one hand on his shoulder stood on tip-toe to whisper in his ear with a voice gone husky, even as the other hand began to work at the buttons of his waistcoat. "You know, Bilbo, we can't actually start our family until I get back and we're married, but now that we're engaged we can ... practice."

/oOo\

Sakura cracked open her eyes and without moving glanced toward the night outside the bedroom window — and if her internal alarm still worked, the brief lightening of false dawn. Only one hour until dawn.

She slipped Bilbo's arm from where it was draped across her waist and sat up, then simply sat for a minute and gazed smiling down at the dark-shrouded lump that was her husband-to-be. It hadn't been the most exciting night she'd ever spent with a man, not by a long shot — it had been Bilbo's first time so she had been as much a teacher as a lover, and for her it had been a long ten years. She had perhaps been a little ... overeager. But if it hadn't been the _best_ sex she'd ever had, it had certainly been the _happiest_. So perhaps it _had_ been the best, from a certain point of view.

But now it was time to leave.

With a reluctant sigh, she slipped out of the bed (hissing at the pull of sore muscles — it _had_ been ten years) and made certain the blankets were tucked tight around her fiancé before gathering up her scattered clothes from the previous evening by memory and feeling about in the dark. She eased open the round bedroom and peaked out at the hallway — as black as midnight without windows letting in the faint false dawn, the only sounds the snoring of Dwarves. She eased out into the hallway and silently closed the door, then scurried down the pitch-black hall to the washroom for a quick soap and wipedown, then back up the hall to her bedroom door and slipped inside. Quick work with matches and candles, and she threw on a robe and began to search through drawers and chest for what she'd need for the journey.

The packing didn't take long — the tinderbox to supplement the matches, a whetstone, some changes of clothes, a heavier cloak than she had worn the previous day (even in late April it could get chilly at night, and there was a mountain range to cross). Her knife and bow and quiver of arrows were still out in the hall. Which left one last task before she left her room.

She pulled a box buried the bottom of a chest and opened it to pull out her Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol, and its last five bullets. When her squadmates had been buried, before she even first woke up to find herself in a new world, the Hobbits had buried what equipment they'd had left with them — including their guns and whatever ammo was left — and she'd never been tempted to ask that the graves be dug up so she could acquire them. What would she need more bullets for in the peaceful Shire? She'd thrown her own equipment in the River — the only reason she still had her pistol was because Bilbo had stuck it in a drawer after examining it, and forgotten it was there. _And you weren't necessarily wrong_, she thought as she examined the last piece of her previous life. _Can you even fire it? Now that you're child-sized the recoil is going to be brutal. And noisy to boot, when we're dealing with a sleeping Dragon_. But a weapon was a weapon, and she sighed as she spread out the gun's cleaning kit on a rag laid out on the floor and began taking the pistol apart for its first cleaning in years.

So engrossed did she become in the barely-remembered task that she didn't realize that her bedroom door had been eased open until she heard a choking sound and glanced up to find the handsome, dark-haired, trimmed-bearded Dwarf she'd been introduced to the previous evening — Fili? Kili? one of the two nephews of Thorin, anyway — standing in the doorway staring at her. Only not at her face, and she glanced down to find that her robe had fallen open. _Great. Just ... great._

She put down the barrel she had been wiping clean and rose to her feet. "Well, come in and close the door before you wake everyone up," she said with a resigned sigh as she rebelted her robe. "Are you Fili or Kili?"

The dazed Dwarf stepped into the room and closed the door. Finally he burst out, "You're female!"

"You noticed," Sakura responded dryly. "So, Fili or Kili?"

"Oh, sorry. Kili." She thought he was blushing, but in the flickering candlelight she couldn't really tell.

"I'm honored to meet you, Master Kili," she said, bowing as formally as she could wearing only a bathrobe. (She didn't know if Dwarves even knew what a curtsy was, and even if they did she wasn't going to try it as ... lightly dressed as she was.) "Can I ask you to keep my actual sex a secret?"

By now he'd recovered from the shock, and the Dwarf slouched back against the wall with his arms crossed and smirked, asking, "Why would such a beauty wish to hide her charms?"

_Oooh, _this_ one knows how handsome he is_. Sakura stepped closer and crossed her arms with a huff. "I cannot _possibly_ fit Dwarvish standards of beauty! I'm too short, too thin, I don't have muscles on muscles or a beard. And if your uncle knows I'm female, will he allow me to join you?"

"Actually, you would make a very becoming Dwarfling," Kili replied with a grin, then yelped when she lightly punched his arm. "Violent, though," he added, ostentatiously rubbing the spot where she'd hit him. "But you're right, we Dwarves are _very_ protective of our women, only a third of births are female and not all women marry. And the fact that you really do ... well, _feel_ like a child doesn't help. You're probably right, if my uncle knew you were female he wouldn't allow you to come."

"And you _need_ a burglar. You need _me_."

"True. All right, I'll keep your secret." He straightened and waved at the disassembled pistol on the floor. "What's that?"

Sakura looked down, then sat down to finish her task (being careful, this time, to make sure her robe stayed closed). "This, Master Dwarf, is a weapon."

"You can leave off the 'Master's, I'm not experienced enough for that. It's just Kili." He crouched across the rag from her, examining the various pieces. "That's a very _odd_ weapon."

"Have you ever seen a skilled slinger?" When Kili nodded, Sakura held up a bullet. "This is like a sling's bullet, the rest of these pieces are for a device that 'throws' the bullet _very_ hard, _very_ fast."

"Really? Can you show me later?"

"I'm afraid not." Sakura put the bullet back down with the other four. "These are all the bullets I have left. Once they're gone, I'll be left with an oddly-shaped paperweight."

"Too bad. Maybe I'll get a chance to see how it works during the journey." He rose to his feet. "But the reason I walked in on you is because everyone else is getting up and starting breakfast."

"All right, I'll be out as soon as I finish here."

"I'll tell the others. But perhaps you might want to dress first, before someone else walks in on you." He suddenly grinned down at her. "Though it is truly a pity to hide such beauty."

"Out, now!"

With a laugh the young Dwarf turned and was gone.

/oOo\

Sakura knocked on the round door to Mistress Daisy Greenhand's house, ignoring Kili on his pony behind her. When she announced that she couldn't leave immediately with the rest of the party — since she hadn't planned on packing up and leaving at a moment's notice she had a letter to write and visits to make, notifications of her change in plans — Thorin had insisted that one of the Dwarves stay with her. She didn't know if it was because he didn't trust her to actually join them (and if so, just how did he think he could keep her from sneaking away later? — she was their _burglar_!) or if he was treating her like a child, but either way she didn't like it.

Fortunately, Kili had volunteered to be the one to stay, so after writing a letter for Bilbo to deliver to her ranger friends — and his repeated reassurances that, yes, thanks to his one visit he could find them — she had been able to give her fiancé a proper (and on her part slightly sniffly, to her chagrin and Kili's amusement) farewell hug.

And now for her second farewell.

"I got it! I got it!" Sakura smiled at the shout from Lily, one of Daisy's grandchildren that haunted her storytellings, followed by the sound of running feet and the clack of the latch being pushed up. Then door creaked open, and the child's eyes widened at finding Sakura on the doorstep. She whirled to race back into the house, yelling, "Grandmama! It's Sakura!"

"Really, child, you don't need to shout it to the neighborhood. Mind your man —" The matron (noticeably more stoop-shouldered than when Sakura had first met her ten years before) rounded the corner of the short hallway and froze at the sight of Sakura dressed in her ranger cloak and leathers with her bowie knife on one hip and an oddly-shaped closed pouch on the other. Then at a snort of suppressed laughter she looked over Sakura's shoulder (not hard, even bent over with age she was taller) and her jaw dropped at the sight of Kili on his pony, all black leather and chain armor and bedecked with weapons, holding the reins to her pony in one hand. "Oh my!" she gasped, and her eyes flashed back to the tween that she had treated as any daughter. "Sakura, what is going on?" she demanded, her face stern as she walked the last few steps to the doorway.

Sakura took a step back. "I, well, I ... ummm ... I won't be able to make it to the luncheon tomorrow?"

"_Just_ tomorrow?" Daisy asked, looking her up and down, her gaze lingering on her bowie knife before reaching out to finger the material of her cloak.

"Well ..." Sakura ducked her and knocked about a loose piece of the cobblestone path with her bare toes, feeling like the time she was eleven and had been sent home with a note from her home room teacher about a prank she'd played that had gone bad.

Finally, Daisy sighed. "I wondered if the day would come when you would run off on an adventure."

At that, Sakura straightened, eyes abruptly hard. "Adventures are for dreamers. I have a mission." She hesitated, then added, "It might be the reason I'm here at all."

"Of course," Daisy replied, "I should have known — should have realized. I am sorry."

After a moment Sakura shrugged. "No harm, no foul," she said (one of the odd little colloquialisms the children had been picking up from her). "I know how poorly most Hobbits think of 'excitement', it was the natural assumption."

"Perhaps but it was still lazy of me, I know _you_ better than that." She paused for a moment, then hesitantly asked, "And will you be returning from your ... 'mission'?"

"I have to." Sakura held up her hand, displaying the ring Bilbo had given her. "I promised."

Daisy actually _squeed_, her hands flying to her mouth, then she threw her arms around the smaller Hobbit and pulled her into an embrace. "He finally_ asked you!_" Then just as abruptly she let go and stepped back. "You didn't hear that!" she instructed, frowning sternly.

Sakura's musical laughter pealed out. "Oh, _I_ might not have, but Lily did," she replied, nodding toward the giggling little girl hiding behind the door.

"My reputation will be in tatters," Daisy said with a theatrical sigh, then leaned forward and whispered, "Did you use the herbs for something besides holding off your time of month?" She laughed when Sakura blushed beet-red, then sobered. "You will be careful? There _are_ people here who will miss you, besides Bilbo. Some of them are even older than the giggle crop, here."

"Yes, I'll be careful," Sakura replied, eyes going misty. "And thank you ... for everything you've done. In the middle of taking care of everyone else, don't forget to take care of yourself ... and I'll expect to hear all the _good_ stories when I get back!" This time it was her turn to embrace the matron, then she turned toward Kili and her pony.

"Wait wait wait!" Lily hurled herself out of the house and wrapped her arms around Sakura's leg. "You _can't_ go! If you leave, who'll tell us stories?"

Sakura gently unwrapped the little girl's arms then dropped to her knees. "I'm sorry, but I _have_ to go ... it's really, really important. But I'll be back, with all new stories! And I'll even be in them."

"Really? You promise?"

"I promise." Sakura gently stroked Lily's cheek, then said, "Tell you what, why don't you come down to the market with me, and I'll tell one last story to any children there before I leave. Okay?" (Another odd word the children had picked up.)

"Okay," Lily agreed, sniffling.

"Come on, then." Sakura rose to her feet, then bent down to grab Lily under her arms and swung her up onto the riderless pony. She motioned a now broadly grinning Kili to take the lead (muttering to him to take it slow), and walked alongside the child to make sure she didn't fall off as the ponies clopped away.

Daisy stood and watched as the small band disappeared around a bend in the path, listening happily to her granddaughter's squeals of delight and shouts at her friends to look at her. It was such a shame that the people of Hobbiton hadn't been as accepting of the stranger in their midst as their children.

_And they'll be even less so when she returns_, she thought as she turned back into her house, _Camellia will see to it_. _Though I suppose if Sakura waits long enough those children will simply grow up. But will she even want to stay when she gets back — return to being the town Outsider? This time she'll have somewhere else to go — as big as her heart is, she won't be able to help it._

The Matron of Hobbiton would have to give that some consideration, during Sakura's absence.

/oOo\

It was getting toward mid-morning by the time Sakura made her last stop, just outside Hobbiton. The Hobbits had done well by her dead squad — not burying the Big Folk in the town's graveyard, that was reserved for family plots, but on a wooded hill just outside Hobbiton. A spot that had its share of sun and shade, depending on the time of day, grassy and flowered and — as she thought every time she made the climb to visit her friends — a magnificent view of the farms and scattered woods below.

She thought so one more time as she finished the short climb (leaving Kili and the ponies at the foot of the hill) and turned to look for a time out over the countryside she was leaving behind.

She wasn't sure _how_ she felt about leaving. On the one hand the Shire had grown ... comfortable, _safe_, a soothing balm on the wounds — mental much more than physical — she'd taken during the war. And her future was here, with Bilbo and the family they would create.

On the other hand, while Daisy had been right that a few adults had come to _really_ accept her, they were exceptions — other than the children (though they were a true joy), the large majority of adults tolerated her, trusted her, but had never really _accepted_ her. And even the adults that had accepted her had never really understood her — not even Bilbo and Daisy, however hard they'd tried. And as she'd recovered her mental balance and the nightmares tapered off, she'd found life in the Shire slow and more than a little monotonous. Thankfully she'd had the rangers to both provide acceptance and understanding plus a little excitement, to the point that she'd considered joining them permanently. In the end she'd only decided to stay because Whoever had brought her here had brought her _here_ — to the Shire, not some ranger camp as it could have, had reshaped her into a Hobbit. She'd thought that meant her _purpose_ was here, but now ...

She dropped to sit cross-legged on grass long since dry from the morning dew beside the grave at the end, of her best friend. "Hey, Sharon. I know it's been awhile, and it's going to be even longer before my next visit because ... I have a new squad! They can't replace you guys, of course ... only a few of them are warriors, but even if they were they aren't you. Still, it'll feel good to be a part of a real group again, doing something that matters! And I actually have a fiancé — yes, I know, one more time you were right and I was wrong. It started when ..."

It didn't take her long to recount everything that had happened the day before and she again fell silent, soaking in the peace, until she finally patted the ground beside Sharon's headstone. "I've already promised Bilbo and Daisy, and even Lily, but now I'll promise you guys, too — I'll be back, with stories like the fairy tales we were told as kids."

She rose to her feet and said a quick prayer for the people she and her squad had left behind that would never know what had happened to their loved ones, another for those she was leaving behind now, then trotted down the hill and leaped up onto her pony. Smiling happily at Kili, she said, "Let's go!"

* * *

><p>I can't imagine Tolkien would have approved of my take on the Hobbits' premarital sexual practices, good Catholic that he was, but waiting until at least thirty-three is a long time. I think they'd end up with something like the Renaissance Germanies (I think), where long engagements while the man accumulated the resources to take care of a family were common and people usually turned a blind eye to the man sneaking into his fiancée's bedroom occasionally. Only the Hobbits are more open about it, of course.<p>

The chapter title comes from the song by Katey Sagal. It isn't a perfect fit, but fairly close.

Keep a fire burning in your eye  
>Pay attention to the open sky<br>You never know what will be coming down  
>I don't remember losing track of you<br>You were always dancing in and out of view  
>I must have thought you'd always be around<br>Always keeping things real by playing the clown  
>Now you're nowhere to be found<p>

I don't know what happens when people die  
>Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try<br>It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear  
>That I can't sing<br>I can't help listening  
>And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round<br>Crying as they ease you down  
>'cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing<br>Dancing our sorrow away  
>(right on dancing)<br>No matter what fate chooses to play  
>(there's nothing you can do about it anyway)<p>

Just do the steps that you've been shown  
>By everyone you've ever known<br>Until the dance becomes your very own  
>No matter how close to yours<br>Another's steps have grown  
>In the end there is one dance you'll do alone<p>

Keep a fire for the human race  
>Let your prayers go drifting into space<br>You never know what will be coming down  
>Perhaps a better world is drawing near<br>And just as easily it could all disappear  
>Along with whatever meaning you might have found<br>Don't let the uncertainty turn you around  
>(the world keeps turning around and around)<br>Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown  
>From a seed somebody else has thrown<br>Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own  
>And somewhere between the time you arrive<br>And the time you go  
>May lie a reason you were alive<br>But you'll never know


	4. On the Road Again

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with in _Fate be Changed_ belongs to her.

I know, almost a month since my last chapter AND I'm adding to this one again instead of moving on to the next in rotation. Part of the reason for my tardiness is simply the sheer amount of words I've piled up before posting (**there's a chapter after this one**), and partly because of Real Life — business has been slow at work to the point that some people were finally laid off, and while my own little two-person "department" has been deemed mission-critical we've had to help pick up the slack. And that's also why I'm continuing to post to this story instead of moving on, if my writing time is being limited I'm going to focus on the story I want to write the most. And with Christmas and New Year's coming up, I think I'll continue to do so for at least a few more chapters. I haven't abandoned any of my other stories, though, I WILL get back to them eventually, once life settles down at work and the plot bunnies pushing this story are satisfied.

As a side note, I've started proofreading for _I, Buffy, adventuress_ by kedrann. It's a fun story were Buffy ends up adventuring in the Outer Planes while the movers and shakers of the Planes are beginning to move in on Earth — and there's plenty of links between Earth and those Planes to build on. So far I've only proofread the latest chapter posted, but I've started through from the first chapter. The plan is to wait to post them until I've proofread all the earlier chapters, so there won't be a quality whiplash for readers, but even without the proofreading it's a decently-written story — especially for someone for whom English is a second language. Check it out and enjoy! IMHO it deserves more attention than it's getting.

As always, reviews are great, thank you!

**skywiseskychan:** Yes, the farewell scenes, both with Bilbo and a bit with Mistress Greenhand, went on a bit longer than I'd originally intended, and were definitely a bit waffish. But I wanted to illustrate what she's actually leaving behind — it's not really where she belongs, but it _has_ become home. Even if Sakura doesn't quite realize that, yet. As for the process of the dwarves and Gandalf learning her actual sex, it won't be all at once but it won't be as drawn out as you suggest, either.

* * *

><p>Bilbo ghosted through the woods, eyes darting about as he searched for any sign of the rangers he <em>knew<em> had to be around somewhere! This _was_ where Sakura had brought him to meet her friends on the single visit he had insisted on ... wasn't it? Somewhere? He thought so, but it had been a few years...

Then he caught the scent of woodsmoke and something _good_ cooking and suppressed a sigh of relief. That had to be them ... probably. But best not to take chances.

Dropping to a crouch, he crept forward and peeked through a bush at the four Big Folk sitting around a small campfire cooking their dinner. He thought they looked familiar — their leathers resembled what Sakura had come to wear on her visits to the Shire's south border and the sheaths of the two knives he could see were shaped the same as hers. But he couldn't be sure.

One of the men rose to his feet. "I'll collect some more firewood," he said as he picked up a larger version of the short, thick bow that Sakura had acquired before striding into the woods to Bilbo's right.

Bilbo followed the sounds of the man's movement through the woods for a moment, then refocused on the clearing as the single female of the four rose to her feet and stretched. As she did she turned slightly, and Bilbo relaxed as he finally caught a good view of her face — _her_ he remembered from his visit, impressed by the brunette's weathered beauty. He had the right people.

"Twice in ten years? Having Hobbits sneak up on our camp is getting to be a common event. You're not quite as sneaky as the last one, though."

Bilbo shot to his feet and whirled around, heart pounding, to find the Man that had left the camp for firewood standing behind him several yards away, already lowering his bow with nocked arrow.

"Sakura was better at it, though ... Bilbo, isn't it? You _are_ the Hobbit that visited a few years ago with Sakura? Is she all right?"

"Y-Y-Yes, I am, and Sakura's fine," Bilbo replied, as he slowly relaxed from the shock of being caught. He thought over the past two minutes and grimaced as he realized that the Man hadn't just noticed him while gathering firewood as he'd said — who'd take his bow with him for that? "How did you notice me?"

The Man grinned. "If you're planning to sneak up on someone, wear duller colors," he replied with a chuckle, "I glimpsed you through the bush."

Bilbo glanced down at his bright yellow waistcoat and grimaced again. He was not off to a good start.

Unstringing his bow, the Man nodded toward the clearing. "Come on, we have some stew left. Then you can tell us what brings you out here instead of Sakura."

/\

Bilbo finished his bowl of stew — a wonderfully rich stew that achingly reminded him of Sakura, though he suspected that she had acquired the recipe from the rangers rather than the other way around — just as the last of the four rangers finished reading the letter he had given them.

The ranger folded up and handed the letter to the ranger that had caught Bilbo — Eradon. Eradon gazed down at the letter for a long moment, then glanced over at the only female among the four. "Ivorwen, you're the best of us for long-distance runs, are you up to a run to Rivendell? I'd feel better knowing that Elrond is watching for their arrival, even if Mithrandir is with them."

Ivorwen sighed, but nodded. "I will, too. Meet you in Bree at the usual time?"

Eradon nodded. "We'll stick to the usual route. With the rest of the leg to the west to do before cutting back, that should give you more than enough time."

"Agreed." Ivorwen rose to her feet and scooped up her bow and pack, then giggled. "I wondered how long Sakura would be able to endure the Shire but I expected her to join us, not head off across half a continent to take on a Dragon!"

One of the other two rangers — the taciturn one, Arahad — spoke up from where he was scraping the last of the stew out of the pot. "I just hope she doesn't choke on the mouthful she's bitten off. I'd miss her." He looked up when others turned to stare at him, then shrugged. "What? She grows on you."

Ivorwen suddenly grinned. "That she does, and she's going to owe me when she gets back, you just won our wager for me." She slung her backpack onto her back and turned away.

Eradon called out, "Ivorwen." When she turned around, he continued, "Make sure to swing wide on your return. As much as I know you'd like to see how Sakura is doing, she'd ask what _you_ are doing alone that far east and Thorin Oakenshield is a little touchy about Elves. He would _not_ be happy learning that they know something of his business because of Sakura."

Ivorwen reluctantly nodded her agreement, and then she was gone.

Eradon watched her go, then turned back to Bilbo. Lifting the letter, he said, "Sakura says the two of you will be getting married when she gets back."

"She did?" Bilbo was surprised, he hadn't expected her to mention that. Then he wondered why he hadn't, after all the times she had visited the rangers she had to have gotten close to them.

The ranger that had been quiet to that point — Ohtar — spoke up. "Actually, she said to be nice to you, you're her fiancé now and she'd have to take your side when she gets back if we don't." the other two rangers chuckled as Bilbo blushed.

Still, that was probably as good an opening as he was going to get. Before he could change his mind, he quickly said, "Actually, there's something you could do for me — for us. Train me."

The chuckles cut off. " 'Train' you?" Eradon asked. "Train you in what?"

Bilbo shrugged. "Whatever you do," he replied. He hesitated for a moment, then continued, "When Sakura gets back, a lot of the ... acceptance she's built up is going to be gone. Actually, it's already going — though the way the gossip about our engagement is clashing with the gossip about how she's, ah ... 'run off on an adventure' is confusing people. But I don't think when she gets back she's going to be really happy in the Shire. She'd stay because of me, but if I hadn't asked her to marry me she'd probably join you instead. But I did, and I don't want her to regret saying yes."

The three rangers stared at him for a long moment, before Eradon finally said, "Is that the only reason you want to do this? You understand this is going to be hard on you — very hard. We travel light and sometimes fast, and live rough. It'll be like nothing you've ever dreamed of."

"I know," Bilbo replied. "Do I really need another reason? Sakura is ... important to me." He was _not_ going to mention the regrets he had suffered in the week since Wizard, Dwarves and sort-of-Hobbit had left on their quest. That night, before Sakura had shown up, when the Dwarves had sung of how the Dragon had stolen their home from them, for just a moment he had been caught up by the music ... lost in his re-awakened childhood thirst to see new lands, real mountains, deep forests — to live a life to make a _tale_ out of! It hadn't lasted more than a few moments, swept away by the horror of the thought of a Dragon descending on the Shire. But as the too-quiet days passed, one after another, each the same as the one before, he'd found that longing returning, found himself wishing — not that Sakura hadn't gone — but that he had gone with her.

But that was a pipe dream. He hadn't missed the contempt of the Dwarves, sprung from the same source as Sakura's care: he was weak — if he had gone, he would have been worse than useless. And so his request.

When it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything more, Eradon glanced over at the other two, lifting an eyebrow. They exchanged glances, then one nodded and the other shrugged. Eradon turned back to Bilbo. "Very well, it seems we have an apprentice."

/oOo\

Sakura huddled inside her cloak, sniffling, paying only enough attention to her pony to keep from falling off as it ambled along. She was in the middle of the line of riders, so it wasn't like she was going to get lost — the Dwarves wouldn't let her, and that was the problem.

She was feeling very sorry for herself.

She had had such high hopes at the beginning of the quest. As wonderful as Bilbo and Mistress Greenhand ... a few others besides the children ... had been, she had never been able to feel like she _belonged_ in the Shire, a part of the community. The rangers had been better, they _understood_ her in a way impossible for what few Hobbit friends she'd managed to make. But again, even with the easy acceptance, the training, the gifts of knife and bow, she'd never really been a part of their little group. She _could_ have been, but it would have meant leaving Hobbiton ... Bilbo ... and joining them full-time. Something she'd been unwilling to do, even though she knew they would have accepted her in a heartbeat if she'd asked. But she had missed the camaraderie she had shared with her squad, if nothing else from the War, and she'd hoped to find it again with Gandalf and the Dwarves. She had been bitterly disappointed.

Oh, _Gandalf_ wasn't the problem ... sure, he had been watching her like a hawk ever since she and Kili had caught up with the rest of the party, but she'd expected that. She was an unknown, and an extremely _odd_ one at that — she was sure he'd never met a Hobbit like her before. And Mithrandir — the Gray Wanderer — hadn't lasted all these centuries, much less gained the almost worshipful regard of the rangers, by being careless. No, her only question was how long it would take him to stop observing and start asking questions of his own; by now, he had to have a small list that would only grow longer when he started getting answers.

No, the problem was the Dwarves, most of them, and a problem that had taken her a while to recognize. She had been her usual cheery self, and the Dwarves had been as charmed as most people were — even Hobbits. And unlike the Hobbits, where liking and even trust wasn't the same as _acceptance_, the Dwarves _had_ seemed to accept her as a person, trading jokes and stories of growing up, letting her help out with the camp chores, friendly all (well, except for Thorin, Dwalin and Dori, but the first two were standoffish — Dwalin by nature, only truly relaxing with his brother Balin; and Thorin she thought keeping a slight distance as king and leader of their party — and the third suspicious by nature and concern for his younger brothers). She should have suspected the truth when all the Dwarves called her by first name instead of 'Master Piper', but she hadn't realized the truth until they passed Bree into the empty lands to its east, and started up watches at night — and Thorin had refused to assign her a watch. Kili hadn't been joking that morning in her room, at heart they really did see her as a child, whatever their heads told them.

And to make it worse, she couldn't figure out how to convince them otherwise, not in the middle of a long journey where every day was like the day before. She had let drop the fact that she was engaged (though not to whom, telling them it was to Bilbo would have made it a little hard to maintain her disguise as a male), and had gotten surprised comments about how young she was. Maybe to a Dwarf, twenty-seven _was_ too young, but it hadn't been the response she'd been looking for. She had volunteered to hunt up a little fresh meat come the evening encampment, to stretch out their supplies. She'd made the mistake of taking Nori along to help bring back her kill (as a presumably reformed thief, he was likely the stealthiest of the Dwarves) and leaving her bow behind. When they'd returned with him carrying the deer carcass, still pale and shivering at what he'd seen, that had been the end of that. Thorin suddenly decided that safety required everyone to stay close to camp.

With that her temper finally started fraying to the point that everyone but Bombur, Kili and Fili took to avoiding her as much as they could — Bombur because he was the party's cook (and a very good one, as indicated by his sheer bulk, whose luscious stews meant that it wasn't just the limited camp rations that made her regret not having more) and he didn't treat her like a child when they discussed stews and other camp fare. And Kili and Fili because Kili had never treated her like a child and Fili had soon followed his younger brother's lead. Kili actually helped her practice her archery some evenings, and both brothers were happy for her company when she insisted on joining them for their assigned watches (she _would_ be included on the watch list, whatever Thorin said). But along with Ori they were the youngest of the Dwarves, less than fifty years old, and not taken all that seriously themselves.

And then it started to lightly rain — for hours at a time, day after day, cool night after cool night, adding lack of sleep to her woes more than joining Fili and Kili for their watches cost her already. Her ranger cloak, as excellent as it was, soon reached the limits of its weatherproofing. So now she was a sodden, cold, grumpy, slightly lightheaded mess.

" 'Ere, Master Gandalf, why don't you do somethin' about this deluge?"

Sakura glanced toward Dori on one side of her pony. _It seems someone else is sick of the weather_, she thought, then shifted her gaze to Gandalf on her other side. (Yes, she'd long noticed that the two members of the party most suspicious of her spent most of their time on the road bracketing her.)

"It is raining, Master Dwarf, and it will continue to do so until the rain is done," Gandalf replied in a weary voice, making Sakura wonder how often he'd been asked that over the centuries. "If you wish to change the weather of the world, you should find yourself another Wizard."

"Oh, good!" Sakura exclaimed, fighting to keep her voice as deep as possible without being obvious about it. "I'm glad I'm travelling with a Wizard and not a **god** ... uh, a Valar! Can you imagine how much all the air you'd have to move to do that must _weigh_? Not to mention the _clouds_!"

Dwarves turned in their saddles to stare at her. "But air doesn't weigh anything ... does it?" Ori, the youngest of the Dwarves, hesitantly asked, turning in his saddle. His tiny, earth-toned braids were dripping water and his knitted scarf and gloves soaked through, but as miserable as he had to be he seemed honestly curious.

"No, Master Piper is correct," Gandalf absentmindedly replied as he eyed the party's burglar. "That is why the air is thinner at the tops of mountains, less air is piled on top, pressing it down. And what are clouds but water suspended in the air? But that isn't common knowledge among Hobbits." His nonchalant tone was belied by the sharpness of his gaze.

Sakura hid a smile when the Wizard declined to say anything more — apparently, even now his caution outweighed his curiosity. _Too bad he'll get a lot of his answers when we get to Rivendell and he talks to Elrond, it'd be fun to see if he could keep from asking any questions all the way to Lonely Mountain._

But she had questions of her own, and after a few minutes she asked, "Gandalf? Why is the land so empty?" She slipped one arm out from under her cloak to wave at the silent, dripping pine forest they were currently riding through. "This all used to be part of a thriving kingdom of Men! I know it broke up, and that plague and civil war devastated the land before the Elves and Gondor finished off the surviving nation of Men and Orcs — did you know the Hobbits actually remember that last war? They do, or at least they remember the squad of archers that they sent to answer their last King's call, that never returned. But that was centuries ago! Why aren't there any settlements between Bree and the Misty Mountains?"

Gandalf glanced down at her. "Ghosts, Master Piper," he replied.

"Ghosts!?" the Dwarves around them chorused.

"Yes, ghosts. When the Witch King of Angmar led his armies down from the north to shatter Arthedain, the last kingdom of Men in the North, he brought more than Men and Orcs with him, or even Trolls. The ruins are still haunted, and the restless dead don't always stay _in_ those ruins. Oh, not around here," he hastened to add when he noticed the Dwarves looking around nervously, "those ruins mostly lie behind us closer to Bree, and the part of the Great East Road through there is safe enough — it is used by Elves wishing to take delight in the Shire or take ship Over the Sea from Gray Havens. No, around here the problem is the occasional Orc raiding party out of Mount Gram or Trolls wandering down from the Ettinmoors and the Coldshaws. But you still get the occasional family that ignores the rangers' warnings not to try to homestead out here."

He glanced up at the open sky over the road, and Sakura realized that while they had been talking the rain had been easing up and now the sun had broken through the clouds in breathtakingly beautiful beams of misty sunlight. "There, you see, Master Dwarf?" the Wizard said with a sly glance at Dori. "No need to tell the rain it isn't wanted, it'll move off on its own soon enough."

/oOo\

Gandalf was proven right about both the occasional attempt to settle and the raiders that preyed on them when Nori, scouting ahead, found a ruined farm on the edge of the woodland just as evening fell. Thorin looked around from his place at the head of the column as Nori led them up from the road to the half-collapsed farmhouse and outbuildings, weathering and up-growing grass and young trees indicating it had been long abandoned. "You're right, Nori," he said, "this will do nicely for the night. Ori, Fili, Kili, look after the ponies. Bombur, get a fire started for our evening meal. The rest of you, there ought to be plenty of wood lying around that isn't soaked through, gather it for the fire."

Sakura swung down from her pony with relief and handed the reins to Ori before eagerly joining the hunt for larger pieces of wood that could be split to expose the inner dry core. A warm meal (if not enough), a change into her only dry clothes that she had saved for the end of the rain, and hang her cloak and bedroll up by the fire to dry so she could sleep dry that night and she would be a new Hobbit!

"Hey, Sakura!"

Her shoulders tightened at Dwalin's shout, and she turned around just at the edge of the clearing to glare back at the tattooed warrior. "Yes?" she asked through gritted teeth — she knew _just_ what he was going to say...

"Why don't you look around for the lighter stuff in the clearing for kindling? Leave the heavier pieces in the forest to us."

She knew it! _Of all the flimsy excuses —_ She swallowed the rant she ached to throw at him and sighed. Just what were they going to do when they all reached Erebor and it was time for her to going into the Dragon's lair alone? "Fine, I'll ... do that," she muttered and walked back into the clearing. Like there weren't plenty of small pieces in the woods, or big pieces scattered around the ruined farm! In fact, thinking about the farms and ranches back home and the farms of the Shire there ought to be a woodpile close to the main house...

As she approached the half-collapsed building she could hear voices, Gandalf and Thorin ... and they _weren't_ happy. "— why should I seek the help of those that betrayed my grandfather ... my father?" she heard Thorin growl. Then Gandalf burst out of the building and strode past her toward the eastern edge of the clearing, his staff almost sticking into the rain-damp ground as he slammed it down with every step. She turned to watch him go. "Gandalf, where are you going?" she called after him.

"To seek the company of the only one around here who has any sense," Gandalf growled without slowing down.

"Who is that?"

"Myself, Master Piper!" he shouted over his shoulders. "I've had enough of the stubbornness of Dwarves for one day!" And then he vanished into the woods and was gone.

The Dwarves in the clearing had turned at his shout and stared after him.

Ori asked, "Where is he going?"

"He's a Wizard, lad, he goes where he pleases," Balin replied, the white-haired counselor's long, forked beard gently waving as he shook his head. He glanced reproachfully toward Thorin, emerging from the farmhouse.

"B-but ... h-he'll be back ... won't he?" Ori stuttered.

Sakura chuckled (instead of giggling ... that took some effort). She didn't know what had set Gandalf off, but she could sympathize. "Of course, he will. Your quest is too important for him to abandon just because he's offended."

Balin looked over at her, gaze sharp. "Shouldn't that be _our_ quest, laddie?"

"Is it? I'm sure you'll let me know when that's the case." Sakura turned away. "Come on, there ought to be a woodpile by the house, more than enough for tonight's fire."

* * *

><p>Don't forget the next chapter I've posted as well!<p>

Also, don't expect to see too much of Bilbo going forward. He's going to be doing all the necessary but boring-to-detail stuff necessary to become a woodsman. All the exciting stuff will be on the Quest! (Or Quests, maybe, I haven't quite decided yet.)

The chapter title is an ironic twist on Willie Nelson's classic Country song.


	5. First Skirmish

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with in _Fate be Changed_ belongs to her.

* * *

><p>Sakura stayed still, covered by her finally-dry and warm bedroll, as she came instantly awake. She listened to the normal night sounds (including snoring Dwarves) and relaxed, then stiffened again when she glanced toward where Fili and Kili had been bedded down to find their bedrolls empty. They had the last watch of the night, and she had been so tired and comfortable that she'd actually overslept!<p>

She muttered a curse before silently easing out from under of her blankets (made easy by the way that, unlike most of the Dwarves, she hadn't _wrapped_ herself in her bedroll), and picked up her conveniently placed belt with her knife and pistol and slung it around her waist. Now armed, she grabbed her cloak and ghosted through the night toward where the brothers would be standing sentry. They could use a good scare as 'reward' for not waking her up.

In the end all her stealth proved unnecessary, she probably could have openly marched up to the pair, clearly illuminated by the light of the moon, brushing against every bush and young tree in the process and they wouldn't have noticed — they were too busy staring at where the ponies were staked. Directly behind them, Sakura murmured, "What's wrong?" She grinned when the pair jumped.

"We seem to have encountered a slight problem," Fili replied, his hands nervously playing with two of the braided ropes of hair falling by his ears.

"We had sixteen ponies —" Kili started.

Fili finished, "— but now we have twelve: Marigold, Daisy, Mindy and Bungo are missing."

"What?" Sakura hissed, quickly doing her own count of the ponies. They were right, there were only twelve. She instantly crouched, pulling the two Dwarves down with her as her eyes darted around — nothing. "Wait here," she murmured, and scuttled forward. _Okay, the light is horrible, but with the rains maybe there's some sign_, she thought as she cautiously approached the ponies, then began to circle. _Chances are we'll have to wait till morning, but —_ She broke off as she stared at the massive prints of bare humanoid feet, deep enough into the rain-soaked ground to cast their own moon-shadows. She looked up along the pair of double-tracks, coming from and going into the woods away from the road, and sighed when she saw the ancient tree lying on its side, roots pulled out of the ground. She knew what had stolen their ponies, what had knocked down the tree months earlier ... and what had caved in half the farmhouse at the same time: Trolls.

"You fell asleep on watch, didn't you?" She glanced at the Dwarves — she was sure that if the moonlight didn't bleach out all color she'd see them blushing furiously. "It must have been a _really deep_ sleep, if it lasted through a _Troll_ walking up and making off with our ponies ... twice!" She was grinning as she spoke, but she was _very_ much less than happy.

_Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!_ she railed to herself. _Gandalf just _mentioned_ Trolls this afternoon! Why didn't you think of them as soon as you saw the house? Why didn't you ignore Thorin and scout around? But no, you wanted warm, dry blankets and an early night. The Dwarves are _right_ to treat you like a child, you're _acting_ like one — skipping along like this is a day's amble through the Shire! You've gotten as lazy and oblivious as the Hobbits you live with, even if you aren't as fat!_ She paused to take a deep breath and force her self-disgust aside. Okay, that last bit hadn't been fair, it wasn't the Hobbits' fault that they'd been secretly protected from casual incursions by the rangers all those centuries. It was possible that the Dúnedain hadn't done the Shirefolk any favors, though the Hobbits had done well enough the one time that Orcs had invaded in large enough numbers that the rangers couldn't stop them — _Not important right now, focus. We're going to need the ponies._ She didn't know how far it was yet to Rivendell ... in fact, she'd only assumed that was where Gandalf was leading them. It wasn't like she could just ask, not with Thorin's dislike of Elves, and if he had his way it was possible they'd just skip it entirely. In which case, they'd _really_ need the ponies...

_Right!_ She turned to the two Dwarves and asked, "Which of you two is the best at moving quietly?"

The two exchanged glances, then Fili nodded at Kili. "He is."

"Okay, then Kili, you're coming with me. Fili, head back to camp and get everyone up, tell them to pack. If we can Kili and I will be bringing back our lost ponies, but whether we can get them back or not you all need to be ready to leave as soon as we arrive."

The two Dwarves stiffened, nodding in unison at the tone of command they'd never heard before from their young Hobbit friend; then Fili was gone, headed toward the camp.

Kili watched his brother go, then turned to Sakura when she touched his arm. She ordered, "Give me a head start, then stay back ten paces or so behind me. When I raise my fist" — she demonstrated, holding her fist up at right angle from her body and cursing herself again for neglecting to work out any kind of sign language with the Dwarves, either what she'd learned training for her own war or whatever the Dwarves might have — "freeze in place. That'll mean I've found our ponies and either be scouting the area or fetching the first couple back to you. Got it?"

Kili nodded again, and Sakura dropped her cloak as she turned to follow the trail as best she could. Lucky for her it was a bright moon and a cloudless sky, and that she was tracking a _freaking Troll!_ Yeah, right ... lucky.

/\

Sakura suppressed yet another wince at more of the soft sounds of the undergrowth brushing against Kili as he pushed through it. She _really_ wished the pine forest they were sneaking through was typical, with undergrowth suppressed by a lack of direct sunlight and a carpet of pine needles. Sure, the lack of undergrowth would make the pair easier to see, but the night's shadows would have taken care of that easily enough. But apparently Trolls liked to knock down trees, so there were plenty of breaks in the tree cover. Though the inevitable foliage those breaks allowed to spring up made tracking the Troll (or Trolls) possible at night, and she had cloaked herself in her Art...

_Right, if _Kili_ attracts the Trolls' attention I'll just quietly sneak away ... not!_ She failed to suppress a wince when a stick cracked just as she saw the first flickering red of fire light through the bushes. _We're doomed_. She raised her fist, waited until the silence showed Kili had frozen in place as she'd ordered, then crept forward toward the light.

Two Trolls, just as she'd been afraid of, were in a clearing beside a large fire, massive beings with brown, gnarly skin and flat, half-formed features, wearing loincloths of untanned leather. Their voices were a deep rumbling as they talked to each other in a language she'd never heard before and didn't want to hear again — she'd heard harsh, hard languages before back at home, but _this_ tongue seemed to darken the shadows and weigh on the heart by its sound alone.

She forced herself to ignore the shivers down her spine to concentrate on what the Trolls were doing, or rather making ... a massive spit for roasting, made of larger branches with the bark still on, tied together by heavy rope they must have looted from travelers since she couldn't imagine them making their own. And over to one side of the clearing, the carcass of one of the ponies, already skinned and ready for the fire. _Hopefully, that'll keep them occupied while I get away with the rest. So where ... ah!_ On the opposite side of the clearing, a knocked down tree with most of the branches on one side cut away forming one side of a primitive corral, the other three sides made up of some of the tree's branches left in place and tied to a few branches across the open side. _Okay, good, we can do this._

Easing away from the edge of the clearing, she quickly and quietly returned to Kili, suppressing a grin at his start of surprise when she ghosted out of the dark — it was good to know that she hadn't lost it, however careless she'd been since joining the Quest. She quickly filled him in on what she'd seen, then led him in a curving path around the clearing toward the makeshift corral. When they were still a score of paces away, she leaned close and murmured, "Wait here, I'll bring the ponies. If anything happens head for the camp and get everyone on the road. I'll keep the Trolls distracted and catch up." She waited for his nod, then slunk over to the corner furthest from the clearing and drew her bowie knife.

It was the work of a few minutes to slice through the ropes tying the branches together and ease them wide and down to the ground. Fortunately, the ponies still had the long cords they'd been staked with so they'd be able to graze, and it was the work of a moment to sheath her knife and gather those cords up to guide them out toward Kili. The ponies were happy enough to leave, though her heart had stopped when they'd snorted at her scent and the noise they were making moving through the undergrowth on the way back to Kili wasn't helping —

"Oi! W'at you do wit' nags!?"

At the sound of rough, broken, heavily accented Common, Sakura whirled to find a _third_ Troll standing a few yards away, his dropped load of wood for the fire scattered at his feet. "Kili, run!" she shouted even as deep, startled Troll voices came from the fire. The Troll twisted its head to look toward the sound of the crunch of pine needles as Kili ran (and a thump and curse when he must have run into a tree), and she dropped the ponies' cords and yanked her knife from its sheath as she yelled, "Hey, rocks-for-brains, over here!"

The Troll roared as the three ponies scattered and she charged toward him, then again as she ducked under the clumsy swipe of one massive hand and slashed at the back of his ankle where the Achilles tendon was on Men.

_Damn!_ she thought as her blade scoured along the Troll's thick hide, leaving only a thin line that didn't even bleed. _I was afraid of that, too thick!_ She rolled away from another swipe and tried to jab it in the ass only to find the tough, uncured leather of its loincloth as effective as the leather armor of the rangers. She backed away even as the other two Trolls came crashing through the bushes. As clumsy as they were here in the forest they might get lucky, pin her against a tree or bush ... _Right, back to the clearing, out in the open I can play fox and hounds with them all night!_

She charged straight at the newcomers, threw herself down to roll _under_ one of the two, and shouted taunting laughter at his fresh roar when her knife left a shallow slice along a _very_ sensitive piece of his anatomy. "Yeah, like you get much use out of that, anyway!" she shouted over her shoulder, still laughing as she ran towards the fire's glow. _Yes!_ she exulted at the sound of the Trolls crashing through the forest behind her. She laughed again as the Trolls burst into the clearing and she leaped onto the spit and _over_ the fire for more room and a little time ... and suddenly the clearing was full of Dwarves, swinging and hacking at the Trolls with swords, axes and maces.

"No! No! No! You _idiots_!" she shrieked, then slapped a hand over her mouth as she realized that she hadn't kept the tone of her voice lower. Fortunately, her shriek was lost in the cacophony of Dwarven battle cries and bellows from the Trolls.

The Dwarves _definitely_ weren't a squad, or had even trained together — they kept getting in each other's way. Some of them weren't even that good as individuals; though Thorin with his swords and Dwalin with his massive mace were both masters; Balin was competent with his sword; and Fili and Kili were working their Troll like a team, Fili attacking from one side, his sword battering at the Troll's arms before Kili dropped low on the other side to slash his own sword across the back of an ankle — with no more apparent effect than Sakura's knife (well, _maybe_ a faint line of dark blood), but at least he had the right idea. But the rest ... _Is Ori using a _slingshot_!?_

Then she winced as Ori's stone flew true, and the middle Troll staggered back a step as it slapped a huge, meaty palm over an eye. _Okay, maybe it's not so — no!_ The Troll was ignoring Dori and Nori whaling away at him with staff and mace to glare at Ori, growling deep in his throat. He suddenly swatted aside the two brothers bedeviling him and charged straight at Ori ... who froze, eyes wide with fright.

Sakura was running forward, but suddenly a wave of weakness washed through her and the world seemed to wobble, and her foot caught on a root. Before she could recover from her stumble or his brothers could reach them, the Troll snatched up Ori, then turned and threw him across the clearing, knocking over Balin and Thorin like bowling pins. The Troll they were fighting reached down with a triumphant shout. One hand scrabbled dirt as Thorin rolled out of the way, but the elderly Balin was too shaken to move and the Troll snatched him up and grabbed the arm holding his sword. "Drop yer arms, er I rip 'is off!" he shouted.

Sakura didn't even bother to glance over at Thorin, she knew exactly what he was going to do — in spite of Balin's headshake, there was no way the king in exile was going to sacrifice his oldest friend and closest counselor. Even as weapons thudded onto the ground at Thorin's growled command, she crouched behind Dori and Nori and crept backwards to the edge of the clearing. Ducking behind a tree, she dropped to her butt and leaned back against the trunk. _Wow, I'm not just rusty, I'm out of shape ... I _really_ shouldn't be this tired, not this quickly. Ah, well, I'll just have to start exercising in the evenings._ She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, slow and steady, ignored the guttural tones of the Trolls speaking to each other in their own language, the crunch of undergrowth that was presumably one of the Trolls walking off. _I am the rustling brush, the shifting shadows as the breeze blows through the night_. She slowly peeked around the tree to see what was happening in the clearing.

As she expected there were only two Trolls now, one holding Balin by both arms now, the other flanking the Dwarves on the side of the clearing leading back to camp, both Trolls were glancing toward the east. For a moment she thought they might have heard Gandalf returning, but whatever it was they were looking at was too high for that, so what — ? _Wait a minute, didn't Ivorwen say something once about Trolls being night creatures? Something about sunlight ... wait, that's right, they turn to stone like the gargoyles in that old cartoon!_ That gave her a time limit — whatever she did, it had to be before dawn. The Trolls might just decide to kill the Dwarves to keep them from escaping during the day, otherwise. And Fili and Kili's watch had been the last of the night, dawn couldn't be all that far off.

The fresh crunch of undergrowth signaled the return of the third Troll with a bundle of fabric under one arm that proved to be huge bags with rope drawstrings. He passed some to the Troll not holding Balin by the arms, and as the two started stuffing the surrendered Dwarves into the bags, tying them off, and tossing them into a pile (much to various Dwarves' shouted displeasure), she slipped from tree to tree around the edge of the clearing. Balin would be the last stuffed in a sack and she needed to be in position before then — keeping the Dwarves alive would be the sensible thing to do, living flesh didn't start to decompose before one could get around to eating it, but the Trolls didn't strike her as sensible. One hand brushed against her pistol's holster, and she briefly considered drawing it, but quickly rejected the thought. _As big and tough as they are I'd need to hit a vital point, and even if I thought my aiming was up to it I can't be sure where on a Troll the vital points _are_. If they have any. Beyond the obvious, anyway._

Then Bofur, the Dwarf with the broken ax head stuck in his skull, was stuffed in a bag as he shouted something in what she had been told was the original Dwarvish tongue of Ancient Khuzdul (and the only language he'd spoken since his injury). The clearing was empty of unbagged Dwarves. The Troll holding Balin bellowed laughter as he tossed the Dwarf to another Troll to cram into his own bag, before ambling over to the pile of squirming, complaining bags. He grabbed the top bag and hoisted it up at arm's length with one hand as his other hand went to a makeshift Troll-sized knife made out of a scythe blade. Sakura was out of time.

Her Invisibility Art shattered as with a banshee shriek she hurled herself into the clearing at the Troll drawing his knife. The Troll bellowed with surprise, dropping the bundled Dwarf he was holding to swipe at her, and she dodged underneath the huge swinging hand and _leaped_ to grab onto his upper arm and swarm up his shoulder to sling herself around his neck. Yanking her bowie knife out of its sheath and flipping it for a reverse grip, she jabbed frantically at where a carotid artery would be in a Man or Hobbit's neck — no use, she just wasn't strong enough to get through his thick hide.

But the _Troll_ was, and a massive meaty palm slapping at his neck slammed the knife into and through, dark blood gushing as the knife tip thrust out the other side.

Sakura let go of the Troll's neck and let his staggering throw her away over the fire. She tucked into a roll as she landed and let her momentum carry her to her feet, turning to stare at the stricken Troll just as his scrabbling fingers caught on the protruding hilt and ripped the knife out — and ripped the Troll's throat wide open. He clutched at the tear, and blood spurted between his fingers to spray across the other two Trolls as they rushed over to help their dying friend. They caught him as he dropped to his knees, but it was hopeless. His hand fell away to thump uncaring into the fire as his body went limp in his friends' grip.

"Burat?" One Troll crouched and gently shook the corpse's shoulder. "Burat?" He waved a hand in front of unstaring eyes. "Burat?" Slowly, he rose to his feet and turned to stare at Sakura. The other Troll broke off staring down at the corpse to turn toward Sakura as well, large tears trickling down his face. "You kill our brother!" he snarled.

_Too much information._ Sakura ignored the familiar nausea beginning to churn in her gut as she slowly backed up toward the trees. "Yeah, I did, he had it coming," she snarked, spitting to one side. "What are you going to do about it?" The Trolls roared and instantly lumbered toward her, and she whirled to bolt into the forest.

Her plan had been a simple one, to get the three Trolls chasing her then to play fox and hounds with them, to keep their hopes up and the focus on her instead of the bagged Dwarves back in the clearing and the coming sunrise. That would give everyone time to pack up and be well down the road before nightfall. But she'd thought that _she_ would be the one to set the pace, that she'd have to slow down to let them keep her in sight. Then a grieving Troll smashed into a tree and tore it up from the roots, and Sakura had to throw herself frantically to one side to avoid being trapped under its branches, then had to roll away from the other Toll's frantically grasping hands. _Crap crap crap, which way's _east_?_ She risked a moment to glance around and get oriented then began to run, jinking through the trees.

The chase that followed seemed an endless nightmare of snapping, toppling trees and bellowing monsters bursting through undergrowth as her lungs burned and her heart thudded in her throat until sparkles of light spangled her vision. But finally she burst out into another clearing, and whirled to run backward as she looked up at the trees behind her even as the Trolls rampaged out of the forest after her — sunlight stretched across those trees, made ragged by the trees across the clearing, she'd made it! Then her heel caught on something and she was tumbling backward, arms pinwheeling as she thumped down.

Before she could recover a massive hand circled her waist to snatch her off the grass. "Burat have no throat, you have no head!" he snarled triumphantly, then grasped her head with his other hand and _slowly_ began to twist.

"Dawn take you all and be stone to you!" The voice seemed to fill the world, and the two Trolls whirled at a flash of light from the other side of the clearing. Then three trees side-by-side slowly toppled forward, and as they thudded down onto the grass sunlight flooded across the Trolls.

The Troll holding Sakura tossed her up and away as he futilely raised his arms against the light, and she had a moment's kaleidoscope of sky and grass and trees and massive brown Trolls smoking as they turned gray. Then she slammed into something and everything went dark.

/\

She slowly awoke to the cool air of a breeze on her sweat-soaked clothes and the sound of birds singing out their morning chorus. She was lying in someone's lap. Forcing open her eyes, she found herself staring up into Gandalf's wrinkled, worried face. "Don't move, let me see your eyes," the Wizard ordered, then gently turned her head to check each eye. "You don't have any broken bones and your eyes look all right. How do you feel?"

"Like I've been beaten on like a drum, but I'll be fine," Sakura replied. She rolled off the Wizard's lap to stand up and stretch with a groan, then turned to look at the two statues now standing at the edge of the clearing. "We'd better get back to the Dwarves. By now they ought to be out of the bags the Trolls stuffed them in."

"Are they all right?" Gandalf asked, his concern shifting to a less immediate target.

"They should be, we can finish getting packed and be on our way. If we're well down the road, the Trolls shouldn't try to catch up to us once night falls."

A hand gently settled on her shoulder. "Master Piper ... Sakura ... that will not be a problem. Trolls do not revert to flesh and blood once they have turned to stone."

"They don't," she said flatly.

"No."

Sakura stared at the statues she now realized were as much corpses as the one she'd left behind and her nausea from before surged back, sending her to her hands and knees to empty out what was left of the previous night's stew onto the grass.

Gandalf dropped to one knee. "Master Piper, are you _certain_ you are all right?"

"Yes." Sakura shifted so she was sitting on the grass, her head between her knees. She reached out blindly. "Water?" A leather water bottle was pressed into one hand and she gratefully sipped enough to wash out her mouth and spit, then took several gulps to clear out her throat. She handed it back, then pushed herself back up to her feet. "No need to be concerned, it is far from the first time," she said as nonchalantly as she could manage. "There is something in me that rebels against killing people, however necessary it may be. And they _were_ people, whatever else they might have been."

She looked one last time at the Trolls she'd helped kill, then turned to stride into the forest ... or started to, anyway. In her exhaustion a fiery-haired foot didn't lift high enough to clear a root, and only Gandalf hastily grabbing a shoulder kept her on her feet. She shrugged off the hand and set off again, more carefully this time. "Let's get back to the Dwarves," she repeated.

* * *

><p>So Sakura is blooded again, for the first time in a decade, and beginning to get back on a war footing.<p>

For the Troll's name of Burat, that's always been one of the things about _The Hobbit_ showing it's intended for children. Trolls named Bert, Tom and William, really? I took Burat from the Middle Earth: The Wizard CCG card for the same. The other two names are Tûma and Wûluag. Also, though Sakura doesn't know it, they're talking to each other in Black Speech.


	6. The Hunt is on!

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with in _Fate be Changed_ belongs to her.

I know, three weeks to post a new chapter than should have taken one and a half. Still, Christmas was great (I hope everyone had as safe and fun a holiday as I did). From here I'm going to make a round of my other stories before people start thinking I've abandoned them, before I think getting a couple more chapters of this one up.

As always, reviews are wonderful!

**Anon42:** And three of the four reviews at that point from longtime readers of my stories. Still, I can think of several reasons for the lack. One, when you read the chapter I'd only posted/updated twice, and there are a _lot_ of Hobbit stories. I doubt mine stays on the first page of listings long. Second, after I started this story I took a look at the Hobbit listings and was rather surprised by the number of stories where someone from our world is dropped into the Quest. I suspect the sheer number using that plot device turns off some readers. Still, here's hoping that interest will grow as more chapters are added.

**Rose1948:** I remember when the Rankin-Bass cartoon first came out, I missed the beginning of a scout meeting to catch it. Fortunately, one of the scoutmasters was sitting on the couch next to me... But yeah, a bit more intense. That cartoon was aimed at young kids, after all, can't give them nightmares. Still, it wasn't bad at all, I have the disc in my collection.

**skywiseskychan:** There are definitely going to be major changes to the future going forward, though perhaps not so many to the Quest itself. For Frodo, he won't even be born for another twenty-eight years if he is at all. And yes, more about Sakura's past and abilities will be revealed going forward, though more the latter than the former —Sakura's break with her previous life is absolute, and she won't ever be going back. But also yes, she does have some powers beyond simple skill. But you're right that her Invisibility Art is labelled rather awkwardly, I wasn't really happy with it but couldn't come up with a more natural label (though it was demonstrated in the second chapter and referred to in the fourth, even if it wasn't named). And you made an excellent point about nighttime signals, I went back and changed it.

* * *

><p>Sakura staggered away from the Troll hole and bent over to brace her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. She and Gandalf had met the Dwarves on the way back, all out of the bags and re-armed and looking to rescue her <em>again<em>. (Though this time she'd needed it just a _wee_ bit more, and she'd been grateful that Gandalf hadn't told them how close she'd come to getting her head twisted off — the Dwarves were bad enough already, no need to encourage them.)

But as soon as they were assured that she was all right, Nori had instantly thought of the Troll hole ... and the loot it had to contain. Thorin had detailed off four of the party to gather up the ponies, prepare breakfast and break down the camp (including Fili and Kili, the pair shamefaced at his comment that perhaps they'd be better able to keep track of the ponies this time). But he'd also insisted that Sakura accompany the party looking for the hole, ostensibly because she was their burglar, but she suspected that after the scare she'd given them he simply didn't want her out of his sight.

The filth and grime of the Troll hole hadn't bothered her much, or even the stench ... she'd smelled worse during the War. (Okay, 'as bad'. Maybe.) But she didn't care about the gold and jewels scattered in small piles around the hole, and the hodge-podge of broken furniture and despoiled clothes and equipment ... corpses of the dead dreams of the Trolls' equally dead victims ... had been depressing. And then she'd seen the muck-encrusted stuffed doll lying discarded, and realized that at least one of the Trolls' victims — maybe even the farmer — had had a _child._ What that child's fate must have been had hit her like a hammer and she had had to get _out_.

Now she fought her nausea under control and sighed with relief (not that she had anything left to upchuck, something her stomach was reminding her of now that she was away from the stench and filth) and strode away toward the clearing where the Trolls' fire had been. She had a knife to find before she grabbed some breakfast, and if Thorin thought he could bundle her up in bubble wrap he could try it without her cooperation.

/\

"Ah, Master Piper, _there_ you are!"

Sakura looked up from the pieces of the broken knife in her hands — the Troll must have snapped it off at the hilt when he yanked it through his own throat — and forced a smile for the gray-bearded Wizard striding into the Trolls' clearing from the direction of the camp, staff thumping along, a sheathed blade in one hand. She stood up as he approached (not that it helped, considering their respective heights) and asked, "Thorin isn't throwing a fit, is he?"

"No, though he was ready to send out search parties before I convinced him that I could find you," Gandalf replied.

'Well, that's something, I suppose," she said with a sigh. She dropped the knife shards — no point in taking them with her, they would need to be melted down and reforged and there weren't many blacksmiths in the direction they were traveling. Or time for it, for that matter. "Come on, let's get some breakfast before my stomach gets overly acquainted with my backbone."

"A fine idea," Gandalf agreed. "But first ..." He offered her the sheathed blade he was holding. "While you didn't seem very interested in the contents of the Troll hole, I thought you would appreciate this."

Sakura lifted an eyebrow and took the blade from him. She drew it from its scabbard with one smooth motion and held it up, admiring the way the morning light played along the bare steel. It was definitely of Elven make, no Dwarf would forge a blade with this one's sweeping double-sided curves. She supposed for an Elf it would be a large dagger, but for a Hobbit it made an admirable short sword — and it must have been made for a child, because the hilt fit her hand. Which meant ...

"A bit hard to skin a deer with this," she commented as she tried the balance with a few swings (and found it superb, of course, though the blade's shape was nothing like the wakizashi used by the ancestral style her mother had passed on to her). She glanced out of the corner of her eye and fought back a laugh at Gandalf's nonplussed expression.

"Perhaps, but it will glow when Orcs are near," the Wizard offered.

"Really? Elves don't believe in sneaking up on their enemies, do they?" He gaped down at her, and now her high cheery laughter rang out as she sheathed the sword and took off her belt to slide it through the scabbard's belt loops. Later she'd have to figure out how to sling it across her back, keep it from dragging on the ground if she needed to sneak up on someone ... or, considering she had spent the last decade living in a Fantasy novel, some_thing_. "Thank you, really," she said once she'd fought her laughter under control and had the sword settled on her hip. "Come on, let's get back to the camp before Thorin changes his mind and sends out those search parties, after all."

She was turning toward the camp when she paused, frowning in concentration for a moment as she caught the sound of something crashing through the undergrowth. The noise was rapidly growing louder, and she drew her new sword as she whirled around to face behind them — whatever was coming through the forest toward them was approaching _fast_. Then perhaps the oddest sight of her life to date burst from the forest to circle the clearing — a dog sled being pulled by _rabbits_ ... and _big_ rabbits, almost big enough one could put saddles on them and give rides to Hobbit younglings!

The Man riding the sled was only slightly less odd: male; dressed in a tattered, multi-layered leather robe and a fur cap; a long brown beard streaked with gray ... were those _bird droppings_ spilling down one side of his head?!

Gandalf had whirled about when she had, drawing a Man-sized Elven sword (also presumably loot from the hoard, since he hadn't had it before). But at the sight of the newcomer, he relaxed and resheathed the sword. "Radagast the Brown."

"So you know this Man?" Sakura asked, straightening as she shook off the shock of the sight of the odd arrival. Then the name caught up with her. "Wait, is _this_ another Wizard?"

"Yes, he is, in some ways a greater one than I." Gandalf glanced down quellingly at Sakura's snort. "I would think that after the past weeks of travel, you would be less ready to judge on appearances."

"What are you ... oh." She blushed as she realized that Gandalf had recognized how the Dwarves had been treating her like a child, and her growing frustration with their inability to see past her appearance — and that she had just done the exact same thing. "Sorry," she muttered.

"No harm done," Gandalf replied. As they watched the newcomer slow to a halt, he smiled ruefully now that he'd made his point and added, "I will admit that he is not the most ... imposing of my Order."

/\

Sakura absentmindedly thanked Bombur as she accepted a bowl of morning gruel, her eyes fixed on the two Wizards walking toward the east side of the clearing where they'd be out of earshot of everyone else. Radagast had been unwilling to discuss what had brought him all the way around the south terminus of the Misty Mountains and up along its west face to seek out Gandalf where anyone but his fellow Wizard, but it had to be serious to inspire such a journey.

Recognizing where her thoughts were headed, she briefly struggled with her conscience, then shrugged before closing her eyes and pulling her Cloak about her. . _They're Wizards_, she thought whimsically, _hoarding information the way a Dragon hoards gold is what they _do. Excuse firmly in place, she sauntered across the clearing in the Wizards' wake, angling her approach to come at the two conversing Men from one side ... and coincidentally away from Thorin. He had been so shocked at the arrival — and appearance — of the new Wizard he had neglected to berate her for wandering off alone, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to hold her temper if he started in on her now. Besides, she was curious, and it wasn't like they would be more forthcoming later.

"— must be bursting with Orcs!" Radagast was saying. "I don't know what they're getting provisions, the newcomers flooding in every week can't possibly be bringing enough for those already there."

"They're probably stretching their supplies by killing off and eating their weakest — 'weakest' being defined as 'unable to avoid being added to the stewpot'," Gandalf remarked with a grimace. "But this isn't the first time the Enemy has brought Orcs to Dol Guldur, why do you think this isn't simply another test of Lothlorien's borders?"

"Before, the Orcs came from Mount Gundabad to the north or from Mount Gram through Moria, but these Orcs came from the south — from Mordor. More, there is this." Radagast reached into his robes to pull out a foot-long object wrapped in cloth. He offered it to Gandalf. "When I was tracking the latest group of Orcs, I was attacked by a Wraith. It wielded this." Gandalf accepted the bundle and untied the binding. Flipping back the cloth, he glanced down and sucked in his breath. His eyes flew up to stare at Radagast, and his fellow Wizard nodded. "The First of the Nine has risen, Gandalf. And the others were buried with him — if he walks Middle Earth once again, so must the rest of the Nine!"

_Orcs? The Enemy? Nine what? What are they talk —_ Sakura gasped as stories the rangers had told her sprang to mind, and she realized just which Nine Radagast must be referring to — and who the Enemy they served had to be.

Abruptly aware of her presence, the two Wizards whipped around to stare down at her, eyes widening to find her standing only a few paces away. _Oops..._ Sakura smiled weakly as she offered them the bowl of gruel still in her hand. "Breakfast?"

Radagast looked confused, but Gandalf seemed to be swelling with anger, he opened his mouth ... and all three whirled to face the nearby forest, Gandalf and Sakura drawing their new swords, as a loud howl rang out.

Behind them and off to the side, Sakura heard Bofur call out, "Was that a wolf? Are there wolves out there?" Sakura could understand why the toymaker sounded confused, they hadn't heard wolves at all on their journey and shouldn't be now — wolves formed packs during the lean winter months, for hunting larger prey — but ... _No_. She had heard wolf howls before, the War had allowed the packs introduced to some western national parks to spread when ranchers that would have killed them fled their ranches or died, and that howl had been much to deep and loud.

Apparently Dwalin agreed, and when Sakura shifted to bring the Dwarves into sight while keeping her eye on the woods he was hefting his battleaxe. He called out, "Wolves — no, that is not a wolf. Get back—"

Bofur shrieked as a canine form exploded out of the woods, bounding straight at him. He fell backwards, lifting an arm to try to fend it off, then shrieked again as the monster-sized wolf's jaws closed on the offered limb. Then Thorin was there, savagely slashing at the wolf's exposed neck with another sword twin of Gandalf's. His sister-sons were running toward him, Fili with shortswords in hand and Kili with strung bow and nocked arrow, when Fili whirled, drawing his bow at fresh crunching of forest undergrowth. His arrow took the second charging giant wolf in the chest, and as it collapsed and rolled toward the pair Dwalin's axe split ribs and sliced through lung as it chopped into the beast's heart. "Warg scouts!" the tattooed Warrior shouted, yanking out the axe with a bright red splash of blood. "An Orc pack won't be far behind!"

Sakura realized she had unconsciously been running toward the fight as fast as her short legs allowed, Gandalf and Radagast pulling ahead of her, and she caught up, panting, in time to see Gandalf glance down at the dead beasts and whirl toward Thorin.

"Who did you tell about our quest, beyond your kin?" the Wizard demanded.

Thorin stiffened. "No one."

"Who did you tell!?"

"No one, I swear! What in Durin's name is going on?"

"These are Gundabad Wargs, not Mount Gram," Gandalf said grimly. "We are being hunted."

Radagast spoke up. "I'll find out what is out there." He looked up at the open sky and whistled sharply, then whipped off his fur hat and Sakura's eyes widened to see — _Are those _birds' nests_ in his hair?!_ Her shocked supposition was proven right when several song birds flew out of the holes that the hair on top of the Wizard's head was formed into ... and yes, those _were_ bird droppings running in a streak from those holes down the side of Radagast's head.

Then the Wizard staggered slightly, a massive hawk's red wings flaring as it landed on his shoulder. The two song birds landed on the hawk and all three birds listened with cocked heads as Radagast twittered at them. Then the song birds flew away into the forest to the east, while the hawk launched itself from the Wizard's shoulder and climbed up into the sky.

Thorin watched birds fly away, then turned to the Dwarves gathering around. "Oin, see to Bofur's arm. The rest of you, get the ponies loaded up. We —"

"No!" Sakura surprised herself by shouting out.

The Dwarves turned to stare down at her. "No?" Thorin asked, voice dangerously calm.

By now, Sakura's brain had caught up with her mouth. "No." She waved a hand at the dead Wargs. "The ponies will never be able to outrun them, our only hope is to hide. And we can't hide with the ponies. We'll have to take their bridles off and leave them, along with most of our supplies — weapons, bedrolls, some cram, that's it." (She suppressed a shudder — Ohtar hadn't been wrong, when he'd compared cram to MREs years back. Actually he'd understated it, cram was actually much worse — at least some varieties of MREs were pretty good.)

Thorin stared at her for a long moment, then nodded to the other Dwarves. "Sakura is right, do as he says." As Sakura headed toward her own bedroll (and her bow, left behind unstrung when she'd joined Fili and Kili for sentry duty, she really _had_ been on a lark!), she heard him ask Gandalf, "Do you know of anywhere around here we can hide?"

"Yes," Gandalf replied, "but it is out on the plain. We would be seen and run down before we could reach it."

Radagast, head tilted up to watch the circling hawk high above, said, "I'll draw them off."

"These are Gundabad Wargs," Gandalf scoffed, "they will outrun you."

"I have Rustabel Rabbits," his fellow Wizard replied, "I'd like to see them try..."

/oOo\

Thorin's two hands gripped the hilt of his new sword with an intensity that turned his knuckles white as Sakura Piper darted out onto the open plain from the eastern edge of the woods where that bizarre Wizard's song bird had led them. Thorin could hear the fading Orcish battle cries and baying of Wargs as they pursued Radagast on his rabbit-pulled sled, but from his own cover he couldn't see them. Not that he would have been watching them even if he could, his eyes were fixed on the waif-like form of the party's burglar as he went to ground beside the closest of the rocky outcroppings that were scattered across the grassy plains up to the edge of the Misty Mountains, his strung bow in hand and arrow nocked if not drawn.

Thorin had desperately wanted to send Nori ahead — as a hunter and (hopefully) former thief, he was the stealthiest of the Dwarves — but the Hobbit had taken offence at the suggestion, demanding to know why they'd brought him along at all if they weren't going to let him _do_ anything!

It had been a fair point, so now Thorin could do nothing but watch the Hobbit crouch-walk to peek around the outcropping, memories washing through him of the rescue he'd led of his niece Arlais from the Men that kidnapped her, how he'd rampaged through the brigands' encampment, reaping lives like a farmer at harvest as Arlais clutched at Balin and sobbed into his chest, the Heir in Exile's chief advisor gently holding her. Thorin knew Sakura was nothing like Arlais — male, years older than she'd been then, with a lifetime of experience the Dwarfling hadn't had revealed in how the Hobbit had handled the encounter with the Trolls the previous night. Still, Arlais shared the ruby-red hair that framed their burglar's thin, pale, ethereal beauty and Thorin could not seem to keep from seeing her when he looked at him.

Then Sakura was motioning them forward, and the Dwarves burst from the forest and raced to join him, Thorin bringing up the rear to make sure everyone kept up with Gandalf beside him.

As soon as everyone had joined him, Sakura motioned to Gandalf. "Which way?" he murmured.

Gandalf glanced around, peeked around the outcropping to the south, then pointed to the east and somewhat north. He whispered, "That way."

For some reason the Hobbit winced, but he nodded, peeked around the outcropping, waited for a long moment ... then darted off ahead toward the next outcropping in the direction Gandalf had pointed.

The party slowly made its way from outcrop to outcrop, Sakura taking the lead with Gandalf and Thorin right behind him (Dwalin ordered to bring up the rear), and Thorin quickly realized that in their haste they'd made a mistake because only Gandalf knew where they were headed, no one else — including Radagast. That bizarre Wizard with his rabbit-drawn sled hadn't been boasting, he really _could_ run rings around the Orc pack. And he did just that, robes flapping in the wind as he charged about and over the rolling hills and around rocky outcroppings, the shouting, baying mob desperately trying to keep up. Thorin even saw him knock one Orc right off his Warg by leading him under an outthrust spur of rock too low for the Orc to clear. But that was the problem — Thorin could _see_ him. The circling, twisting chase kept leading the pack within sight of the fleeing party, even crossed their path once, all it would take to ruin everything was one Orc glancing in the direction of Wizard, Hobbit (well, maybe not so much), and thirteen Dwarves crouching down out in the open instead of focusing on the sled leading the pack on. It was all Thorin could do not to shout at Radagast to _lead the Orcs SOUTH_ before their luck ran out.

Then it did, and Thorin froze when he heard a rock clatter down the side of the latest outcropping they were hiding behind, the snuffling of a hunting beast sniffing the breeze. He slowly looked up and winced to see above them a single Warg-mounted gray-skinned Orc in mismatched bits and pieces of armor, scanning the landscape from atop the outcropping. If the Orc glanced down ...

Thorin looked down at the Hobbit beside him, and winced. Sakura's grip on his bow was steady, he was slowly drawing back the arrow — but his face was pasty-white and his chest was rising and falling like a bellows at a forge as he fought not to pant. Thorin turned his head to look at Kili on his other side. His sister-son was stiff with fear, but his short bow was also in hand with arrow nocked and his eyes were fixed on his uncle.

Thorin nodded at his shortbow, motioned with his head up toward the Orc.

Kili nodded stiffly. He took a deep breath, slowly drew his arrow back, then with one smooth motion stepped away from the outcropping, whirled around, raised his bow and fired ... at the Warg!

The shot was clean, slamming into the Warg's chest, but the massive creature merely staggered to one side. The Orc on its back gaped down at his attacker for a moment before lifting a horn to his lips, and Sakura's arrow took him in the chest just as Kili's second arrow knocked the horn from his hand. The wounded Orc slumped to one side and the overbalanced, staggering Warg toppled sideways to send them tumbling down the side of the outcrop to land a few paces away. The Orc somehow rolled to his feet and ignored the arrow stub in his chest to run screaming toward the Dwarves waving his blade, only for Bifur and Fili to step forward shouting their battle cries and take him down with spear and sword ... and Thorin's heart froze as Sakura leaped past them with drawn bow to face the massive, howling Warg climbing to its feet behinds its rider. The Hobbit's arrowshot took it through an eye from mere feet away and he lithely dodged to one side to avoid the dying beast as it collapsed forward and rolled up against the dead Orc. Thorin started breathing again.

"Quiet!" Sakura shouted from where he was braced on one knee, shaking hand fumbling at his quiver for another arrow, and the shouting, questioning Dwarves fell silent ... and the Hobbit's shoulders slumped as in the fresh quiet the sound of baying Wargs grew louder. "They're coming this way," he said between gasping breaths.

"This way!"

Thorin looked around at Gandalf's shout to see the back of the Wizard's billowing gray robes as he ran to the north away from the rapidly approaching Orc pack. "After him!" Thorin shouted, breaking into a run after the Wizard. "Dwalin, carry Sakura!"

"Wait, no, I can — put me down!" For a moment Thorin grinned as he ran even as his eyes searched the surrounding hills for any Warg-riders flanking them.

Then his smile vanished as Warg-riders appeared on hills on each side, running hard as they angled in to cut off the racing Dwarves. Ahead of him Kili shouted, "They've cut us off!" His eyes cut forward past the Dwarves stumbling to a halt ahead of him to see more Warg-mounted Orcs coming straight at them, and he looked around frantically. "Gandalf, where —" There was no Wizard to be seen, and he snarled as pure anger flooded through him at the betrayal. Not that he'd ever be able to repay it. "Rally here! Here, to me!" he shouted as he strode over to the closest rocky pile thrusting up from the plain, too narrow and sharp for the Orcs to climb. At least the Orcs would pay dearly for their lives.

Bifur and Ori reached him along with Dwalin, their Hobbit still slung over his shoulder. The warrior swung Sakura down and set him on his feet, and the burglar whirled toward Thorin, drawing a deep breath for what was likely to be an epic rant.

"No time for that, Sakura, we have killing to see to," Thorin growled before the rant could start, his eyes scanning around and the rest of the party huffing and puffing toward their position, the Orcs slowing down and bunching up to hit them as a body. Kili had paused a score of paces out for his first shot at their pursuers, and Thorin grinned viciously as the closest Orc fell back off his Warg with an arrow protruding from the middle of his forehead.

For a moment, an image flashed in front of his mind's eye: Arlais, ruby hair shining in the sun as the stunningly beautiful maiden that terrified Dwarfling turned into over the years said her farewells to her brothers the day they left on the quest. He glanced down at the equally ruby-haired waif beside him, bow in hand with arrow nocked, waiting for a target. The Hobbit was still too pale and his face shiny with sweat, but his breathing was easing. "It seems all I've done is lead you to your death, little one," Thorin said with regret.

Brilliant lapis lazuli eyes glanced up at him for a moment, above a tight smile. "Don't concern yourself, Thorin," Sakura replied as he resumed watching the gathering Dwarves and Orcs circling around them. "This is how I expected to die, just ten years late."

"Still, it's a poor —"

"Over here, you fools!"

Thorin whirled at the shout and relief swept through him at the sight of Gandalf's pointed weathered gray hat and staff rising from behind a large boulder at the foot of a nearby hillock about ten paces away. "It looks like you get to live, after all," he murmured, then pointed at the Wizard and shouted, "There, to Gandalf, go, go, go!" With Dwalin on one side and Sakura on the other and the rest of the Dwarves that had already joined him following behind, he raced over even as Gandalf again disappeared from sight, and glanced down the hole revealed behind the boulder — a short drop followed by a slight incline down to a tunnel floor some thirty feet below. _Good enough_. He took up station on one side of the hole. "Everyone down the hole, now!"

Dwalin leaped up onto the boulder and dropped down into the hole, quickly followed by Dori, Nori, Oin, Bifur ... Below, Thorin could hear Gandalf counting off each new arrival. _Sakura!_ He glanced around, and suppressed a sigh when he found the Hobbit standing on the other side of the hole, eyes scanning the Orcs with bow at the ready. Thorin almost absentmindedly slaughtered a riderless Warg charging in from the side (he reluctantly acknowledged that Elves had made _fine_ blades) and, as more Dwarves dropped down, called, "Sakura, down the hole, now!"

When the Hobbit ignored him he _did_ sigh, then reached across the hole to grab Sakura by the back of his leathers, pick him up, and drop him down the hole. Ignoring the echoing high-pitched shriek, he yelled, "Kili, get over here, now!"

His sister-son took one last shot, spilling yet another Orc corpse onto the grass — the closest of a scattering of corpses stretching across the plain — before turning to run toward his uncle. Thorin glanced around, didn't see anyone else. He called down into the hole, "Gandalf, how many down there with you?"

"Twelve!"

Good, that was everyone.

Then Kili was leaping over the boulder and into the hole. Thorin waited a few beats to give his sister-son time to get out of the way, then turned his back on the fast approaching Orcs and stepped off the edge to drop down after him.


	7. Give Me the Meltdown!

I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien, and anything Araceil came up with in _Fate be Changed_ belongs to her.

I intended to do a round of the rest of my stories, really I did, but this one just kept pulling me back! So I guess I'll try alternating between other stories and this one. The next chapter will be for _The Raven 02: __Coming Home_. I do seem to be getting back in the groove, so the wait shouldn't be as long as it's been lately.

The chapter title comes from the song by Rob Thomas, though it isn't a perfect fit.

Also, for anyone that hasn't noticed, Araceil has added some new chapters to her fabulous _Fate Be Changed_, taking it past the Battle of Five Armies. Wonderful stuff! Another couple "The Hobbit" stories I've been enjoying are Raouldehadleyfraser's _(Not) Quite Ready for Another Adventure_ (Bilbo falls asleep on the ship leaving Middle Earth and wakes up in Bag End months before Gandalf and the Dwarves show up) and Tsume Yuki's _This Dream's On Me_ (a true Hobbit/Harry Potter crossover, with a fem!Harry/Fili pairing).

As always, reviews are wonderful!

**Rose1948:** Glad you're still enjoying this. As for why Sakura was referred to as "he" for much of last chapter, that's because I usually avoid using 3rd person omniscient for the narrator's voice, instead limiting the narrative knowledge to that of the viewpoint character. For the last half or so of the chapter that was Thorin, and he still thinks Sakura is male.

For getting introduced to new anime/manga/whatever, I've found crossover fanfics useful. That was actually how I was first introduced to Ranma, through Penguin-sa's Sailor Moon/Ranma crossover, _Fist of the Moon_. I've also picked up a bit about _Rosario + Vampire_, _Neon Genesis Evangelion _(a manga I have no desire to actually read), _SG1_, _Naruto_, _WoW_ and others that way.

**skywiseskychan:** I've decided you have a point about handling Sakura's Art, and have gone back and done some light editing in chapters 1 and 5. And yeah, Jackson went a little over the top with Radagast. Still, that does have the advantage of showing just how different he is from his first appearance on screen. He is going to be getting a bit more face time in my story than he did in the movies, though, so he'll have a chance to demonstrate Gandalf's comment that he's a great Wizard in his own way.

* * *

><p>Sakura shrieked as she fell into the dimness of the pit, half in fear and half in pure anger. She could not <em>believe<em> Thorin had just dropped her like a sack of turnips! She twisted frantically to get her feet underneath her, to face into the coming roll instead taking it on her back — and Gandalf's long arms snatched her out of the air, swinging with her momentum to deposit her safely on her feet.

She clung to him for a moment as she caught her balance. _He's stronger than he looks_, she thought, feeling the hard muscles of his forearms through the sleeves of his robe, then shook away the thought as unimportant at the moment. She released him and stepped away to quickly glance around the small cavern she found herself in, then focus on the hole she'd been so peremptorily dropped through as she renotched arrow to bowstring. There were still two Dwarves up on the surface, but no guarantee that it would be a Dwarf that dropped through next — there was no way that the Orcs had missed the rapidly diminishing number of prey for them to catch, or where they'd been disappearing...

But the next one to drop down was a broadly grinning Kili, the overly handsome Dwarf's eyes seeming to almost sparkle with excitement in the dim light of the cavern, followed by Thorin. She ignored the Dwarf that had manhandled her — there'd be later to deal with that, there'd be Orcs following them any moment — turning toward Kili instead only for Dwalin to beat her to it. The burly warrior shouted, "Kili, get an arrow to that bowstring! They'll be right behind —"

A horn sounded, cutting across the Dwarf warrior, and he fell silent as that echoing call was followed by both harsh Orc and high liquid battle cries, skirling steel against steel and shrieks of pain, apparently surrounding the hole in the small cavern's ceiling. In the midst of the cacophony, a gray Orc appeared to teeter on the hole's edge, then plummeted down to slam into the lower incline and roll across the stony floor to lie twitching at Thorin's feet for several beats before going limp with a sigh even as two arrows, from Kili and Sakura both, perforated chest and throat.

But those weren't the first arrows, and Thorin stooped to grab hold of the broken shaft of another arrow protruding from the Orc's eye and yank it out. He examined the arrowhead, then threw it aside in disgust to clatter across stone. "Elves," he ground out, glaring up at the ceiling as if he could see through the stone to the battle above by sheer force of will.

For a moment the cavern was silent, then Gandalf sighed and motioned toward a tunnel entrance in the back wall that Sakura hadn't noticed before. He quietly said, "We should be on our way."

Thorin transferred his glare from the ceiling to the Wizard, but after a long, fulminating moment jerked a nod and stalked past him toward the tunnel. "Let's go," he ordered.

The other Dwarves exchanged uneasy glances, then Dwalin hastened to push ahead of his king as the rest fell into line behind. Gandalf and Sakura brought up the rear with the Hobbit all but backing up as she kept an arrow nocked and her attention on the tunnel behind them.

/\

Sakura stumbled as _something_ swept around her: fluid, caressing, welcoming, but like nothing she'd ever felt. Recovering her balance, she hastily glanced around to find herself still in the tunnel. Only ... the light was much too bright for a tunnel. For that matter, how was it lighted at all? She glanced around at the rough stone walls on each side that clearly had never been touched by human tools — or Hobbit, Dwarven, Elven, or whatever other sentient races were out there. Which meant no sconces for torches or lamps. She looked up — and froze in place, so suddenly that Gandalf behind her almost knocked her over.

The tunnel was no longer a tunnel, it was a crevice; she could see cloudless blue sky directly overhead. It was as if something — or some_one_ — had simply reached down and pulled the surface apart, just enough for a party to walk along in single file. But the light — _It's not possible. The angle of the sun ... it's not directly overhead, it's like an invisible mirror is reflecting the light straight down._ She glanced around ... no shadows, though the light _was_ somewhat dim, soft.

She looked up at the gray-bearded Wizard standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder, smiling gently down at her.

Wait, behind her? But _she_ had been last, guarding —

She twisted under Gandalf's hand, desperate to look back along the crevice behind him. "Gandalf, the Orcs — !"

"— Cannot follow us here," he assured her. "No creature touched by Darkness can find the entrance to this path. Not that there are likely to be any survivors of _that_ Orc band able to search for it ... any left will be fleeing for their lives."

Her shoulders slumped with relief, and she unstrung her bow then reached up over her shoulder to slip it back into its sheath. (She was happy to still have it, somewhere along the way she'd dropped the arrow she'd had nocked.) That done, she looked around as she resumed walking after the file of Dwarves. Something was different ... _she_ was different. She felt lighter ... her mind felt clearer. In fact, she hadn't felt this good since ... _Since we left the Shire, or at least since Bree. What is going on?_ She whispered, "Gandalf, where are we?"

She could hear his smile in his voice from behind her as he murmured, "You can feel it?"

"Well, yes, it feels like ... well ... I've never felt anything like it before, I don't know what it's like. But it feels like ... home?"

Gandalf softly chuckled. "What you are feeling, my dear Master Piper, is magic — a very powerful magic of Elrond's upon the land. It isn't from the same source as the Shire, but I believe the effect is somewhat the same."

"The _Shire_?" Sakura whirled to face the Wizard, walking backwards as she demanded, "What effect are you — ?"

Dwalin's voice echoed from the head of the line: "There's sunlight ahead!"

Glaring at Gandalf for a moment to let him know their discussion wasn't over but merely postponed, Sakura turned around and broke into a jog to catch up. A few moments later she exited the crevice and froze in place as she stared: the Company was standing on a ledge high up a canyon wall, and she gazed across lush trees — beech and oak, not the pines like where they'd encountered the Trolls — and flowering undergrowth covering the canyon floor and climbing both sides. There were scattered buildings too spread out to be called a town but too many to be anything else, their architecture all smooth curves, open rooms and covered walkways to complement the flora when they didn't simply vanish into it. And water everywhere, running down the canyon walls in rivulets, streams, even small rivers. She felt tears prickling in the corner of her eyes at the sheer beauty of the scene and the peace that seemed to settle over her like the soft, plush, warm blanket fresh from the dryer that her mother had wrapped her in before tucking her into bed on cold winter nights.

Still behind her, Gandalf softly called out, "Here lies the last Homely House east of the Sea, the valley of Imladris! In the Westron tongue it is known by another name."

She breathed, "Rivendell..."

But apparently that same feeling of peace didn't extend to everyone. Sakura was jarred from her rapt contemplation of the view when Thorin brushed against her as he stomped past, fists clenched, and she turned to watch the confrontation.

"This was your plan all along ... to seek refuge with our enemy," Thorin snarled up at Gandalf as soon as he reached him.

"You have no enemies here, Thorin Oakenshield," Gandalf replied with a sigh. "The only ill will to be found in this valley is that which you bring yourself."

"You think the Elves will give our quest their blessing? They will try to stop us."

Gandalf, by his tone clearly exasperated, snapped back, "Of course they will. But we have questions that need to be answered." He stared down at Thorin until he grudgingly nodded, then swept past him, Sakura and the rest of the Dwarves to take the lead on the path down the side of the canyon wall. He called back over his shoulder, "If this is to be successful, it will need to be handled with tact ... and respect ... and no small degree of charm. Which is why you will leave the talking to me."

Sakura fought to keep from giggling as she followed Thorin, finding herself in the middle of the company as the Dwarves parted at his gruff command to let him pass then followed after.

The walk down was rather pleasant, with the gorgeous view of the valley, songbirds singing their calls, and the scent wafting up from the flowers that lined the path, and Sakura actually found herself enjoying the day right up to the point that the path ended on a cobblestoned road ... one that led over a stone bridge without side walls or railing. The opposite end of the bridge was flanked by massive stone statues of what she guessed were Elven warriors; it was hard to tell since the figures were wearing some kind of segmented armor and helmets that reminded her of Greek hoplites (though the spears they held upright were much too short for the Greeks). Beyond the statues lay a semi-circular stone platform whose only exit she could see was a stairway leading up to the closest building.

And then she made the mistake of looking over the edge and froze at the sight of the river rushing underneath, a score of paces below. She froze, heart suddenly hammering in her chest.

"Sakura?"

She jerked at the sound of her name and looked up to find Balin beside her.

The white-haired counselor glanced over the edge of the bridge, then back up at her. "Afraid of heights, laddie? Just stay to the middle of the bridge and look straight ahead and you'll be fine. Like Bofur." He pointed at the toymaker now crossing the bridge, walking stiffly and staring straight ahead. Balin continued, "I'll be right behind you."

"I am _not_ afraid of heights," Sakura huffed, then when Balin simply smiled knowingly she reluctantly added, "It's deep water I ... have a problem with."

"Easily fixed!" Fili cheerily announced from behind her. "The next lake we come across, we'll just have to teach you how to swim."

She turned to glare at the handsome young Dwarf. "I'll have you know I can swim like a fish, when I have to," she announced. "Almost drowning as a child just takes all the fun out of it, that's all."

Kili stepped alongside his older brother and arched an eyebrow while struggling to suppress a grin. "And when was that exactly, yesterday?" He yelped exaggeratedly when she punched his arm with a half-hearted growl.

Turning back around with a sigh, she stepped over to place herself _exactly_ in the middle of the span's width, fixed her eyes on the stairway on the far side of the large cobblestone semi-circle the bridge ended at, took a deep breath, and started to walk.

It was the work of only a few beats to cross, though it seemed to take forever. As soon as she reached the end of the bridge she darted to the middle of the circular paved area and blew out the breath she only then realized she'd been holding. _Someday I'm going to have to get over that_, she thought. _Maybe daily laps if I ever find a decent pool?_

As Balin and a chuckling Kili caught up with her, motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she turned to see an Elf walking down another set of stairs toward the newcomers. He was dressed in a sky-blue robe with a crimson cape and a silver circlet vaguely resembling Celtic knot-work resting on his honey-blond hair, and moved with unhurried grace. She frowned thoughtfully. _Is that Elrond? He doesn't seem much like the peaceful warrior the rangers described — peaceful, certainly, but a warrior?_ Then the Elf nodded acknowledgement to Gandalf and began to speak.

And she was promptly lost in the flow of words, stunned by the liquid speech and mellifluous tone of the Elf. He was speaking the same Quenya she had learned from the rangers, she _knew_ he was — word after familiar word was leaping out at her — but she was so focused on the sheer beauty of his voice that she wasn't able to put the words together into coherent sentences. Though she did pick up enough to know that no, this Elf _wasn't_ Elrond and she _thought_ they were going to have to wait for him to arrive. The spell was broken when Gandalf replied, his voice suddenly sounding as weathered as his face, asking where Elrond was. _Wow_, she thought, _that man could sell ice cubes to Eskimos!_

The sudden clattering sound of horseshoes on stone yanked her attention away from Gandalf and the Elf, and she turned to see a cavalcade of mounted warriors in single file riding down the cliffside road toward the bridge the Company had just crossed, and she blanched as they trotted across the bridge without hesitation. _How can they _do_ that?!_

Suddenly hands were grabbing her shoulders and backpack to yank her toward the center of the platform, and Thorin and Dwalin stepped in front of her with sword and hammer at the ready while the other Dwarves closed in around her on all sides.

"What — ? You idiots! Let me out!" When the Dwarves ignored her, Sakura angrily tried to shove through the mob only to be pushed back. _Okay, now it's on!_ she thought, fuming. She slid down to her hands and knees and thrust herself forward, actually knocking one Dwarf off his feet to tumble over her back (Bofur, from the fur cap that landed on her), and then she was through the ring of bodies! And barely managed to keep from tumbling into an outer ring of horses circling the Dwarves, oops...

She pushed herself to her feet next to Thorin just in time to see a dark-haired Elf in steel segmented armor like the statues spring from his horse in front of the Wizard and handed his reins to another Elf as he happily call out, "Gandalf!"

"My Lord Elrond," Gandalf replied, then continued in Quenya, _"My friend. Where have you been?"_

_Oh, right, dark hair, Half-Elven ... _this_ is Elrond_. Sakura had forgotten that part of her friends' description. At least his voice didn't have the same mellifluous quality as the first, so she wasn't getting lost in the music. That effect _had_ to be deliberate.

Elrond embraced Gandalf before stepping back and hefting his sword. _"We've been hunting a pack of Orcs that came over the mountains from Gundabad. We slew a number near the Hidden Pass. Strange for Orcs to come so close to our borders, something — or someone — has drawn them near."_

Gandalf motioned to the company still bunched up in the center of the platform, though they had relaxed at the obviously friendly welcome. "That may have been us," Gandalf said in the common Westron.

Well, _most_ of the Dwarves had relaxed. Thorin was still taut as a bowstring as he stepped forward.

Elrond inclined his head. "Welcome, Thorin son of Thrain."

Thorin raised an eyebrow at the greeting. "I do not believe we have met."

"You have your grandfather's bearing," Elrond replied. "I knew Thror, when he ruled under the Mountain."

"Indeed! He made no mention of you."

Sakura winced at the rude response, but Elrond ignored the brush-off, instead shifting his attention to the entire Company and spreading his arms. _"Welcome, guests, to my house and table."_

"What is he sayin'? Is he offering insult!?"

Sakura rolled her eyes at the outburst as she glanced over her shoulder at the axe-hefting Dwarf behind her. "No, Master Gloin, he is offering food," she replied tartly, "don't be rude."

"Ah, well ..." It was all she could do not to laugh at the red-bearded miner's clear embarrassment. "In that case, lead on!"

Elrond's lips twitched, but he only motioned over the first Elf that greeted them and whispered something to him, then waved invitingly to an archway to one side. "Come this way."

Gandalf immediately followed, Thorin reluctantly behind him and the rest of the Dwarves falling into line with Sakura again in the middle.

The walk to the offered meal was as pleasant as the walk down the canyon trail had been, the seamless mix of wild and garden, the flowers' perfume and she suspected even the birdsong all formed a harmonious whole. She suspected that the Dwarves didn't care for it (so she thought from the mutterings she overheard of crude stonework and shoddy craftsmanship, and wonderings of how it couldn't possibly last a century), but for her not even the small traditional Japanese rock garden her mother had created in memory of her lost home had ever been as soothing — however much family loyalty demanded she deny it, she just had to admit that having several millennia to perfect their Art just gave the Elves too much of an edge. Combined with the sense of peace that seemed to rest over the valley, it was just what she needed to settle her soul after the whiplashing her emotions had taken that day.

And then Thorin had to go and spoil it.

As Elrond and Gandalf broke off their conversation in Quenya as they walked through an archway opening into an open-air pavilion where a long table was set up with servants still laying out plates and utensils, Thorin stepped aside and waited as Balin, Dwalin and Bifur passed by. Then it was Sakura's turn, and he caught her arm and pulled her aside. "I do not trust these Elves," he murmured (as if that was supposed to be a surprise). "Stay close — go nowhere alone."

And just like that, her sense of contentment vanished as all the accumulated grievances that the long day had simply heightened came roaring back.

"Stay close? Stay close!?" she shrieked. "You mean like when you push one of your best fighters into the middle of a pack of stinking Dwarves where s-he can hardly breathe, much less see what's going on? You mean like throwing away the only archer available while _your nephew_ still needs covering fire while he's running for the rallying point? You mean like charging to a rescue I didn't need with every Dwarf in the company instead of packing up so we wouldn't have to abandon badly needed supplies? You mean like not allowing me to hunt even though we need to stretch out those supplies? You don't like Elves? I would never have guessed, it's not like you didn't offer insult after insult to an honest greeting from _our host_! You're supposed to be a king, what the **hell** is wrong with you!?" She whirled away from the stunned Dwarf, then turned back. "And one more thing — I am a Hobbit, _not_ a Dwarfling, you can't just drop me down a hole and expect me to bounce when I hit the bottom!"

With her high-shrieked diatribe finished, she turned her back on him again and strode away, passing the Dwarves still on the walkway. She wished for once that she was wearing boots — the tough skin and fur-like hair on her feet might render footwear unnecessary, but they also precluded a decent stomp. Reaching Fili and Kili at the back of the pack, she paused to shrug off her backpack, bow and quiver and thrust them at them. "Here, watch these for me," she growled, then strode off. She could almost feel the two Dwarves' astonished gaze boring into her back.

"Where are you going?" Kili called after her.

"Anywhere but here!" she yelled back over her shoulder. Reaching a stairway leading down to the valley floor they'd passed a few minutes before, she practically ran down the steps and stalked off through the garden at the bottom.


End file.
